Amateur physician

The ice-maker seizes up for its own reasons.
When it does, sometimes it keeps its own counsel.

When it decides to speak again, it whispers.
It speaks in chilly half-syllables.

Sometimes, though, it groans as it fails.
We should all know there is and will be no ice.

For a day, a day and a half, its machine soul grinds.
Up at two to let the dog out, it labors on.

We call a repairman, and for days
it seems he had succeeded. A soft hum, and ice.

Mountains of it. A great, freezer-blocking heap.
And then, the silence descends again.

Or the grinding. We scrape the rime from its vault.
Still just a floe of melt, refrozen.

After days, inexplicably, ice. Our drinks refreshed.
I’m saying the ice maker cures itself.

I’ve looked: polymers and spacecraft self-mend.
Even our cells can cause our own hearts to heal.

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