Mornings Lately
by Michael Buckius
Lately morning life is beautiful, especially the dirty dirt in my backyard. The cats roll
around in the dirtiest dust and they love it. When I pat Mrs. Claws a tiny cloud of it
bursts from her coat, but mostly she prances around the yard and shows off the burial
mounds she makes with her little white (brown) paws. I lean back and sip maté from an
old Vegenaise jar. The chair I sit in feels like it will give soon, and that will shock me.
Like everything else, it’s a little dirty, and smells a strange dusty, like a dead smoker’s
old dresser. I wish you could come join me in my dirty backyard sun. It’s warm, and
patient, and maybe it will strengthen your bones which are weak from the virus. We
didn’t die today, but we are dustier than we were yesterday. It’s dirty out here, it’s dusty,
it’s pure life content, the purest life content, just really great content.
Michael Buckius is a writer, filmmaker, and educator from Lancaster, PA. He earned his undergraduate degree in Film and Media Arts from Temple University, and his MFA in Creative Writing from Northern Arizona University. His work has appeared in Triquarterly, The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, Quarter After Eight, and Ghost City Review, among others. He currently teaches at Arizona State University and lives in Phoenix. His debut full-length poetry collection Mustache in Plain Sight was released in March 2022 by Tolsun Books.