A Gathering of old Phrases

It was not like any dream: here no fence or barb-wire
allows for the jumping of the sheep I never counted:

one, two, three sheep, the usual story. Here the cattails
bend, unbend, at this lean hour. It means nothing but

the wind shuffles them, in the heat it is strong. In the
dream, there is a lake I call Lake Como of seaweed

and Lake Where Horses Enters The Sea. One after another,
as though sheep in another dream, in lines they come.

I can count them, easily: one, two, three horses, not
the usual story. If dreams are messages, do I need to clean

—what—my body? my hands? I have not murdered, nor betrayed,
nor loosened, from the dying crows, the dying lambs, their limbs.