CROSSING THE GLADES

A bull gator swallows a bowfin whole.
Egrets prowl the shallows.

Chain-link fence separates their world from our highway –
though not well enough.
Cornucopias of roadkill keep crows fat.

Afternoon thunderheads build over Lauderdale,
Plantation and Miramar. Still accelerating.

Two hours to Deerfield where
the last deer fled fields decades ago,
where pastures and palmettos bulldozed decades ago.

Traffic snarls the entire day on Dixie Highway.
No surprise. No surprise at all.

Steve Reilly’s poems have appeared in Charon, Albatross, Wraparound South, Main Street Rag, Broad River Review, Cape Rock, Poetry South, and other publications. He work as a staff writer for The Englewood Sun, a daily Florida newspaper with circulation in south Sarasota County, Charlotte and DeSoto counties.