my mother on the other end of the coiled
phone cord describes her insides
as being of snakes
chewing holes in the lining
of her good winter coat rattling
until she feels them under her fingernails
one of her coat threads is sewn
mother to daughter Florida to Alabama
holding us together in our serpentine sickness
I am cold all the time stretched out on a heating pad
I tell her my temperature is 100 and rising
her fever is 101 she says rattlers are sunning
in the rocks on her property’s edge
they get heavy with rats
that come drunk out of the garden
on yellow squash on parsnips
and old pasta from the compost pile
she turns the pile with her nose pinched
shovel like a spatula in a lasagna of rot
each winter layer I shuck in fever
adds me a new rattle to my growing tail
she scoops old goat shit
from the barn into the wheelbarrow
to fertilize next year’s rising crop
she finds the snakes under the foundation
leaves them be in their cool stupor
lets them live to eat another rat
a would-be garden thief caught in a god’s jaw
a late storm leans the crumbling beams over
pushes the antique wood into the empty lot next door
she says the rattlers find a new place to sun
on the hundred-year August-bleached wood
as if to say we will take your barn
we will love this rot
we will lie here if you won’t
make our bodies warm in our sun
and we will be here when you come
to understand that you cannot
fully shed what tethers you
when your rattles grow in
they’ll hurt like wisdom teeth
my mother texts me a video of a dead rattlesnake
I ask her which one is easier to kill
the rats or the rattlers
she says this one was quick got too brave
and writhes after shovel and neck meet
the snake watches its own severing
shovel cleaving scale cleaving scale
my coat is larger than my mother’s
made of diamonds
sewn together with snakeskin
