Lumbering Gladiators

Back when I was
A scrawny teenager
Traipsing across
The desert hills
Around Las Vegas
Some forty years ago,
I collected several
Desert tortoises
I found along the way
To add to our
Backyard menagerie.
They were pretty rare
Even back then,
And they are probably
Virtually extinct today.
With all the roads
And highways
Crisscrossing
The valley floor
These days,
And all the traffic
There in Vegas,
It is hard to imagine
Any of them surviving.
Although they made
Great pets,
Those turtles tended
Not to be very sociable
With each other,
And whenever two of them
Were put together,
A battle would ensue,
With each one trying
To flip the other over.
This wasn’t a turtle
Courtship routine,
Or some bizarre
Mating ritual,
I was out and out war
And they were trying
To kill each other.
Now it might have been
That all the ones I had
Were males,
And each one thought
They were battling
For rights to the yard,
Or for whatever
Males fight about,
But I am sure
The tendency to act like
Lumbering gladiators
Probably hastened
Their extinction.