Dreams Float

The house my father built was poor shelter.

The walls had holes that, after dark,

became doorways for the nesting night creatures

that gathered under my pillow and in

My pants pockets and between the pages

on my desk. They snuffled and rustled and

murmured endlessly about fault and failure

and dreams that end up surrounded by

Rotting timber at the bottom of the ocean.

But I know something my father forgot:

Dreams float, and they rot far more easily

in taverns on shore than in the salty 

Freshness of freedom.