Alligator Alley in the dead of October night
is the flat-out loneliest-ever ribbon of highway running
between the lost-gold coasts of my naked heart.
Beneath Orion’s gleam, Everglades’ swamps and sloughs breathe
fresh water across these middle-of-nowhere lanes
as if offering second-breaths for my naked heart.
Under the full Hunter’s Moon, Florida panthers are prowling
razor-barricaded from manslaughter, but a man can crash
right through the barbed concertinas twined ’round my naked heart.
Within bald cypress domes, silence swallows the hissing
Interstate; then, a rarity: in silhouette two parliaments of owls—
one barred, one great—lament the eternal fragility of my naked heart.
Who-who-who hurt you so?
Who-who broke your naked heart?
Header photograph © Olivier Schopfer.