Sickbed Sestina

I believe that this is the first sestina I've ever written, and, I have discovered since, not a true sestina. Oh well. The end result is maybe a bit overly philosophical and plodding, but the process was pretty fun. Common and Very Common Nouns courtesy of Random Word Generator.

SICKBED SESTINA

What does a half-filled glass of water represent?
What trite and useless lesson might it teach?
And can such aphorisms save a man
or woman’s beating shipwrecked heart enough
to buoy it toward something more complex?
Can mystery and meaning join with plot?

Those who’ve read the ending, know the plot,
and can decode what symbols represent,
(the ones that are straightforward, not too complex)
and these we might well count upon to teach
us something – not quite all but quite enough
about the heart of woman and of man.

And who am I in all of this? A man
who ruminating on it hatched a plot
to etch the glass’s midpoint just enough
that drinkers decide what drops do represent
and maybe then they’ll all decide to teach
lessons arid, waterlogged, complex.

For is life empty? Full? A complex
of organisms making up a man
or woman waiting for the thing to teach
or data points that we forgot to plot?
Hold the film up to the light and represent
it in reverse and see if it’s enough.

Tip the water over, then we’ll teach
the lesson of having had more than enough
of forced compliance with a placid plot
of fearing the blurred edges and complex
paradoxes intrinsic in each man
and woman with all they represent.

This man hopes to muddle through a plot
at once complex and never quite enough
to represent what he could never teach.