By James Penha

I would have saved him,
a beauty, lithe and lean
hair as yellow as mine.

Often I came to him
in the maze, his father
busy in his workshop.

The boy adored me
of course and opened
himself to my longing.

Of his father’s plan to fix
wings of feathers, string,
beeswax I knew nothing.

I would have saved him
but I attended elsewhere
as he flew into my radiance.

I would have tried
although mortals who love
divinely almost always fall.

About the Author

Expat New Yorker James Penha (he/him?) has lived for the past three decades in Indonesia. Nominated for Pushcart Prizes in fiction and poetry, his work is widely published in journals and anthologies. His newest chapbook of poems, American Daguerreotypes, is available for Kindle. His essays have appeared in The New York Daily News and The New York Times. Penha edits The New Verse News, an online journal of current-events poetry.

Twitter: @JamesPenha