Landlocked Blues

January sun dresses trees in light.
I am the thing I have always been
though tethered now to snow and ice
and an image of myself
neither aquatic nor buoyant.
Heavy. Ice is heavy after all,
though translucent,
and I move my body
over it cautiously and
with care. There is a kind
of captivity here, a kind of
restraint that I must observe:
the world through leafless branches.
Trying to remember a time
when I felt strong and water
received me in its freest form,
salty ablution as counterpoint
to my life on land.