That night

the creature returned from 

its reticent hiding under the

floorboards and in the moaning

of the wind in the gables

Jacob rose 

in his dream 

and stepped across the threshold of his

bedchamber 

 the door  

               strangely ripped away and sagging from its hinges

                                       no longer a door 

                                        but gnarled grey driftwood

                                        a piece of ribbed, petrified wind

                                        dead

                                        useless

the creature was howling

somewhere

under Jacob's bare feet 

under the level of his hearing

under the house, the ground, everything

wailing up from the deep 

moving faster than it 

ever had

in front of him, behind him 

         circling

         closing in

Jacob had no guttering candle

to hold high but he could see

the ancestors beginning to lurch like

drunken men as the

floor began to 

              tilt  

and warp into dark, creaking planks

             the white walls

beginning to darken, arc and bend out

           forming the hold

                                     of a 

                                    ship

            pitching forward

            in the screaming

            darkness

Jacob stumbled and fell against the expanding walls

sliding down to where he 

could crawl

                 crawl towards the door, far far down the hallway

                                  where Uncle Emiel was

Uncle! Uncle! 

no called reply, only the surging 

of water

frigid, icy water

that suddenly gushed from the walls themselves

over his hands and knees 

                    drowning them, freezing them

                    in bitter salt brine

rising steadily 

                     a dam-burst of seawater flooding the lowland of the ship  

Jacob 

crawled, struggled forward

towards the far prow where he thought

he could hear Emiel singing

Uncle! Uncle! It's taking us down!

              The ship of the house

tilted and rocked in the opposite direction

            spilling Jacob into the rushing water

making him gasp

           sputter for breath as he surfaced

arms flailing in the churning, 

dark water

The Leviathan! Uncle, the Leviathan! It's taking us down!

               Willem clanked the poker against the 

               inside of the tile oven, cursing 

               and yawning

               the first rays of dawn pushing through the

               leaden glass panes

and Jacob awoke, sweating

his blanket kicked off and fallen to the floor

in the night

leaving him exposed

frozen and 

trembling 

         in the sunlit ice 

         of early morning