September—The Cosmos and My Unreliable Heart

I’ve filched some last gladiolas and canna lilies

from the park to brighten things up with

the fog overtaking the cliff

and suggesting that everything floating above

the occluded waves is just sea-dust, salt. . . .

I place my flowers in a jug

and gaze out into the guesswork where we might

rise into untended fields of clouds, bright,

durable blossoms of the cosmos.

But nothing changes change. Didn't I go door to door

in my sea-checked uniform shirt, collecting

for “underprivileged children,”

ignoring holes in my P.F. Flyers, wondering what

exchange with fortune had me scrounging

for pop bottles to redeem and look

selfless dropping 6¢ in the box in front of class? God,

it’s argued, allows for hope, light at the edge

of our expectations, but a fatigue

arrives—of the spirit, of blood—sleep, old river, grey

moonlit boat, easy drifting . . . . but I ask, Who

wants to grow calm? So I still say

to hell with fame, insider trading as I once did complaining

with my unruly compadres on our dead summer

lawns, 1/2-way happy despite that

jerky rumba beneath my ribs. Now, I just want to breathe

as steadily as particles of light arriving from who-

knows-where as I drum my fingers on

the lawn chair, a traffic of protons and electrons clicking

through me like off-kilter castanets. I might even

accept that someone, at the margin of

the blue, is scribbling out our fates regardless of biology

or a demonstrable lack of interest? If so, I hope

their hand doesn't cramp, as I go along

with a posse of blackbirds, looking for our luck in a parking lot,

enjoying their unqualified fellowship as we dawdle,

aware of the improbability of life-ever-after

as 1/2 of the state burns away again and there's no way to recall

Mesozoic rains that rose out of the seas to water

forests from Carpathia to Punta Arenas.

We've been on our own for ages, never mind the cortege

of angels who've been asleep at the wheel. I should

be grateful to have made it this far, yet

don't feel like cracking a bottle of Reposado, and singing

a chorus of El Rancho Grande, half my compadres

among the dearly departed—reason enough

to recall the lyrics to “September in the Rain?” and point to

the sun, going out like a dying ember. For the time

remaining, I salute the planets, even

the ones we no longer acknowledge. May I catch light in

a soup can—may my heart hold out a bit longer

against the randomness and the rust.

Christopher Buckley's Sprezzatura was published by Lynx House Press in 2025. Early & Late is coming from Cloudbank Books in 2026. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in Poetry, two NEA grants, a Fulbright Award in Creative Writing, and four Pushcart Prizes. Most recently he has edited Naming the Lost: the Fresno Poets—Interviews & Essays.