horse sleep

i learned how to sleep standing up
because someone had to watch
the front lawn for lions.
in the living room, the sheep had dreams
of us becoming wealthy off their wool.
they kept department store catalogs
& circled every gadget they wanted:
air fryers & freeze dryers &
a singing washing machine.
if i'm being honest with you 
i wanted those trinkets too.
wanted sliver & glossy apparatus
to make a home for us. 
i taught myself by watching horses.
walked out to the farmers 
& observed their tall slumber.
my knees became bottlecaps. my arms,
pinwheel blades. how different a machine
the body is when perpendicular.
really though, i want to be
a flying carpet. i want to live
horizontally the way the sun 
buds like a new tooth. 
tonight, wool fills every closet of our house.
the sheep went to school 
with lunch boxes of feed.
they came home & slept like buttons.
a horse is always a father unless
it is being led to water,
then it is a son. i was always
a son. holding my breath,
i'm waiting for sleep to make
a statue of me. blinking my eyes
i catch one lion & then two.
the world is full of lions.
or else maybe they were just
the shadows of pickup trucks.
it is always better 
not to chance it.