Tyler Michael Jacobs
You will begin your great death into manhood.
The corn will be picked and the alfalfa
baled. The thick scent of pasture will no longer
sore your eyes. The rain will turn cold and colder.
Then, eventually snow. The morning fog
will carry a shadow as it always does.
The snow will fall until it holds each field.
Each pasture is a part of me that dies
and I have been dying since you were born.
Your fever is breaking. I let you nap
longer than I normally do today.
The dog licks your hands and your feet. I sit
on the porch and watch the clouds. Tomorrow,
the work will still be there as it always is.
Tyler Michael Jacobs is the author of The Weight of Drought (Stephen F. Austin State University Press, 2025) and Building Brownville (Stephen F. Austin State University Press, 2022). His words have appeared or are forthcoming in Phoebe, Passages North, Variant Literature, Plainsongs, Sierra Nevada Review, and elsewhere. His poems have also been featured on Nebraska Public Media’s Friday LIVE. He received his MFA from Bowling Green State University.