Counting Sheep

Counting Sheep

 

I force my body to lie still in the bed, tangle it with blankets

to tie it to the dark end of night, close my eyes,

and pretend to sleep, but inside my quiet legs,

my unquiet legs are running, running,

and the tattered moths my of eyes beat and beat

against the cage of my skull.

 

Somewhere, an invisible light keeps calling me,

a light I can't turn off, no matter how many times

I pull its chain.

 

I am as small as an ant.  I am a song in the wind.

Sleep holds its breath and counts and counts,

but there are never enough sheep, never enough

boring stories to fix me in the womb of darkness.

I tumble like a weed, a diaspore. I am an exploding star.

A memory rising from oblivion.  A haunting.

 

 

 

Mary Stebbins Taitt

100608-0220-1st