Poetry: A Dream

Published in Gutter Voices #1 March 2020

 

A Dream 

 

The sheep on the hillside are pouring in from all directions, meeting along fencelines, milling between gateposts, wool wedging tight.

 

The hillside becomes a building, sandstone block-work some stories high. Through the windows the sheep have turned to polecats, innumerable and unutterably silent beyond glass.

 

They are not playing as I first thought they were. They are desperate to find a way out. Tight along they run, more and more throng to every sill, and then begin to spill out onto the pavement below. They stream across the street to my feet. They smell strongly of honey and fear, come to moil and musk against my cold-bone ankles. It’s something chemical they’re running from. I cannot help them, I'm as scared as they are. I don’t even have the scent of honey to redeem me.