napowrimo - Cato

Cato

On January nineteenth, the temperature was chilly but dry
That morning, the pecan trees were arthritic brown fingers
that pointed in every direction
even ones that led nowhere but open
water. The pine around the farm had been thinned
by his own hands that fall. They offered no cover. The overcast
sky was shackle-grey. So dark that when Cato raised his wrists
he could not see the ugly chain that usually connected
his left to his right. And so released, he too slipped
into the misty land between bound
and free.

Prompt: