Scarecrow & Farmer

Right at dusk, as always, I overhear myself: a drone note audible in the lull between shifts of crickets.

Darkness rises from the ground between the corn stalks, which are anything but still. I step deliberately, one season

on each foot. Today left a crust of salt around my collar, lifted now by a passing breath of wings. I don’t look up.

Four quick cries & a pause, then two more: Estiquirín. The hoe handle digs a furrow in my shoulder

while above me, outlined against the stars, the one wearing my old clothes shivers under his straw, his cross of sticks.