Night Swimming

There’s a secret those
With impaired mobility know
But rarely seem to notice—
Mobility is rarely
Impaired from the perspective
Of the dreamer dreaming.

In fact, in dreams
Perspective rarely shifts
To notice locomotion.
Dreams are notorious
For being floaty, flying
Even, sometimes running,
Without feet, without pounding,

But if you can’t stand
Them, haven’t run through life
Ever, or hardly walk or not
At all—and you all know you
Never, on your own strength, flew—

Still you float and run and fly
In dreams and settle like your own
Skirts tossed aside, your own sheets
Snapped and drifting over
A bed to be tucked and cornered.

Now, why should that be? Why
Do dreams release your sense
Of embodied, personal motion
In gravity’s grip while gripping anxious
Awareness even tighter, like a miser
In a fairytale, holding on to coins?

You’ve returned to the ocean,
Where everything was darker
And more easily alarming
Except your own faint heaviness,
Which never existed, slight ballast.
Dreams are lineal memories,
Sediments in landed bones,
Of a billion years of ocean.