The priest dreams of swinging
From ropes tethered to the bow of a schooner
Slicing unseen waves.
The pizza maker dreams of chasing
Solomonic frogs hopping and cheeping
in a field of barbed wire.
The barber dreams of an ecstasy
of salt dunes making a beach
against an ocean of unknown depth.
That they live in a town silent
about its imaginations means nothing
for the images made real when they sleep.
The beads of water on the skin of frogs,
the frayed hemp fibers of the rope,
the crystalline peaks of salt dunes
make real a place they cannot ever find
but that they know orbits a sun
in which they have faith.
About the Poet
Gabriel Welsch is the author of four poetry collections, the most recent being The Four Horsepersons of a Disappointing Apocalypse. His first collection of fiction, Groundscratchers, appears in October 2021. Recent work appears in Ploughshares, Moon City Review, Thrush, and Lake Effect. He lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with his family.
For the first time in nearly five years, Vita Brevis is closed for submission. Read the full story here.
Vita Brevis Press. 
Love the images here.
Lovely sense of rhythm