Brochures assure

sun gilded retirement, afterglow after

the nest egg cracks open,

cloistered landing in walled reserves

named for vanquished birds,

Falcon’s Rest, Osprey Haven.

Architects of artifice render

night artificial in Florida.

Excesses of light double down

on full moons. Exhausted natives,

diurnal in nature,

sing twenty-four hours

while dazzled migrants

lose their way.

Ad execs promise to banish darkness

and eerie, unsettling calls

from screech owls and clapper rails.

Retirees who die after dusk have options

unavailable in scrub brush or marshes.

Byways to life after are lit, asphalted

and though not explicitly stated,

eulogies are provided

by mockingbirds.

Claire Massey is a retired Floridian, grateful for the time and energy to fight developers. Her poems have appeared in Tiny Seed, Flashes of Brilliance, Snapdragon Journal of Art and Healing, Persimmon Tree, Panoply, and Flights, 2020. She is Poet Laureate for Pensacola Pen Women and a selection editor for the 2021 print edition of The Emerald Coast Review.