Open acres begat bare grass,
and sunshine begat headache.
What felt like a farmhand
raking out the old fool’s soul

was the rattle the fool woke
to, a wind kicking the roof
under years and years of
weather and crows. All his years

of it came down to midday blackouts
and the staked-in sense that within,
some slower work accelerated:

bundle of coal unwrapping
among a multitude of cells —
interloper braiding its lithe body
through bone, then brainstem.

Temples begat exhaustion
begat tremor begat nightmare.
His neighbor raking wet leaves:
a skeleton contorting itself.

He’s lost it now, let it slip
among root bulbs and windfall:
the rat snake bringing its armor
through bramble and dead basil.