Ashes Of Apollo

True to your wish,
I scattered your ashes
on the sandy beach in
the armpit of Florida
where we pledged to
honor body and spirit--
until . . . ?

I can still see you--
diving from the high board,
sinuously twisting, your
Apollonian body
glistening in the sun,
flying straight down
into silken water,
splashless.

Mortal Icarus fell out of the sky into the sea,
not Apollo.

The autumn after I
gracelessly disposed of
your fragmented mortality,
a hurricane struck the
Apalachicola coast,
scattering your ashes
to the four winds, to
Alabama, the Carolinas,
and beyond.

In my dreams,
you are still flying across
the face of the sun.

Kathryn Lasseter is a retired college professor who has recently returned to writing poetry after a long truancy. She has poems in Stone Poetry Quarterly, East Ridge Review, and Heimat Review.