One breaks free. For a moment — light, the rim,
the air beyond the glass, the world outside.
Then claws. The pile rises, limb on limb,
and drags him back to where the others bide.
He fought. He climbed. He almost touched the sky.
Now shell-locked, still, he sinks among the rest.
No rage left. Just the slow collective why
of creatures clutching what they can't possess.
The water warms. They do not feel it rise.
Too busy measuring each other's reach,
too blind with want to lift their lidded eyes,
too proud to learn what escape could teach.
I crack one open. Sweetest meat, they say,
comes from the ones who almost got away.