deep sleep for horses 

i too sleep standing up. the sun 
turns me into a kickball & we eat 
the feed corn until we have no teeth left.
i call a doctor to ask if they have
any treatments for being a horse.
he laughs & rides his own horse through
a thicket. in my hometown there are
hitching posts all over for the mennonites 
& me. i wait outside for my dad to be done
at the knife shop. the old beer store 
burnt down & there were horses running everywhere.
a horse only needs about 30 minutes 
of rem sleep. to do so, they have to lay down.
they have to take off their legs & 
become a tunnel in their own heads.
the doctor tells me i am late on feeding
my blood to the ghosts. i am late to
the color white. i am not sleeping
as much as i should even for a horse. 
the truth is that sleep has always been
a sand box for me. dig & dig for dinosaurs 
& only find lamp light. i remember waking
in the donut hole of the night 
to stare out the window at the roads 
full of horses. if i could be summer forever
then maybe everything would be okay.
i need berries & the sound of thunderous rain.
horses to make a herd of me. my sleep,
seldom thick like sap scabs on the tree roots
at the edge of the field. my lover begs me 
to stop sleeping standing up. on my worst days
i end up on the ceiling, somehow still standing. 
with a bridle he tries to pull me down. 
brush my mane. tells me stories about 
riding a train into the marrow of 
this sleepless place. when we first got together
we stayed up all night over & over until
there was nothing left of us. 
just horses in the wild dusk. orange 
& glowing. eyes like hoof-prints.