shallow enough, close to thaw,
the ice beginning to fissure like
latticework bowed: a teensy fish,
tadpole maybe, wiggling in place,
its Labradorite carapace glinting
prismatic an hour before dusk—
striving to be from some untold
laze, petrified midstride through
the numinous murk then starlight,
starbright—twinkle twinktwink
atomic bits of plankton rain knife
the cold to constellate passage
through nights deemed eternal as
something somewhere else draws
breath in hushed realms. Winter
can be so lonely. I steady my gaze
at the amoeban husk dance ecstatic
as sunlit fronds suspended in silt
sound their applause. And for
a moment, I am ready for death.
So much splendor endures. Only
if the rest of us were this elastic.