Sheep Need Vet

Peculiar necessary messiness
of sleep! That we should nightly
need to creep into the thing so deeply –
that our bodies can’t apparently
survive without whatever it delivers –

what a brightly seeping oddity –
prodding neap tides in the mind: rivers
flooding into, out of psychic seas
or finding, butting, sweeping into
psycho ponds and lakes – quakes

and exigent vicissitudes of mental
operation wielded by a panel of Zen
quantum lunatics on random doses
of adrenaline and dopamine, greased
by God knows what other hormone

cocktails each of our arcane and
idiosyncratic frangible metabolisms
seek to get their jollies and relief.
Sleep’s a thief that robs of us
of our secrets and displays them in

the Ziegfield Follies of whatever stage
we’re stuck in: dreams are like
the luck we have when swimming
in a thunderstorm – and odds are
infinitely good that we’ll be struck by

something absolutely crucial we will
not recall as soon as we awaken.
Probably we need the break in waking
consciousness we get, but all those
sheep we count to do it need a vet.


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