From half-melted cubes of ice
emerge the shapes
of little fishes frozen,
bottom-feeders
suspended in stale,
glassy waters.

Their plight shatters fragile thought
even as it elucidates truth
of my life’s stagnation.

Melting, morphing
into someone unrecognizable,
I vow

to swim upstream
toward grizzly death,
glorious self-sacrifice;

to claw at the dirt
and tunnel six feet down
into an early grave;

to climb a ladder
into ever-darkening sky
and see if I can fly.

Too long I’ve waited.
Half empty or half full, I will be
no more contained.

I shall be content no longer to dissolve
in forgotten well water, soured
by neglect and disuse.

I shall rise and fall and flow again
in heaven’s river Jordan
or be swallowed by fire –
either way I’ll not be
confined to solid state,
losing shape and form.