Counting Sheep

first sheep is an idea

A soft suggestion with hooves

A cloud that decides to be an animal

Just to give your thoughts something to hold

It hops the fence lazily

As if even gravity has agreed

Not to try too hard tonight

The second sheep follows, slightly smug

Wearing the confidence of repetition

You think, ah yes, this is working

Because twice feels like a pattern

And patterns feel like control

By the fifth sheep

The field has widened

Moonlight spills like milk

Over grass that never existed until now

The fence creaks so bludgingly

Your breath begins to line up with hooves

In out jump

Seven sheep ate

One of them looks back at you

As if to ask whether you're counting correctly

As if the math matters more than the rhythm

At ten sheep

Your thoughts try to sneak in sideways

Unfinished e-mails

A sentence you should not have said in 2016

The mysterious noise your fridge makes at 3 AM

But the sheep are professionals

They keep jumping

They keep interrupting

By 15 the sheep have personalities

One has a nicked ear

Another jumps too early, clips the fence, apologizes

You forgive it immediately

Forgiveness is easier

When everyone is wool

20 sheep arrive like a small parade

Their hooves make no sound now

Even the concept of sound has laid itself down in the grass

Numbers begin to soften

Their edges rounding off

Like stones in a river

At 27

You forget whether you said 26 out loud or only thought it

The difference seems unimportant

The field breathes

The moon blinks

30 sheep

And the fence is no longer wood or wire

It is just the idea of a boundary

Something to cross

So the mind doesn't wander too far into itself

By

The counting becomes more like a lullaby

You are humming without words

Sheep blur into motion

Motion blurs into rest

Your body grows heavy

In the way a ship settles

When it finally trusts the water

At fifty

Maybe

The sheep stop arriving one by one

And begin to come as a feeling

Soft, repetitive, infinite

The field stretches past numbers

Past names

There is no last sheep

There is no fence

There is only a gentle looping jump that carries you

Out of thought and into sleep

Where even the sheep, dutiful and kind

Lie down at last and dream of nothing at all