Understory, Fall 2026—Issue I (Digital Edition)

Neon Orange in the Morning

by Carrie Morris

The carbon black of night loosens its grip,

slipping into a steel-gray mist—

damp, muffled, clinging.

I open my eyes

and enter the morning’s quiet machinery:

people on autopilot, bodies in motion,

hastened hurries, calibrated steps,

enacting routines as if repetition

might hold the world together,

each footfall one morning closer

to an unnamed end.

Faces surface, vanish.

Eyes dull, mouths set.

The mist thins into steel light.

Drab.

Deep.

Suffocating.

Desperation is disguised as discipline—

eyes fixed on phones, jaws tight—

searching for the big break,

the other half, inner peace, a windfall, a purpose,

always the next best thing,

a silver bullet for a good life.

Then the horizon betrays the script.

Cloud tips ignite—neon orange—

as if the day has something to say after all.

I feel the urge to claw upward

from the morning muck,

the stainless trap we agree to enter,

again, and again.

So, I imagine the edge of the ocean,

a mountaintop breathing cold air,

a porch stitched with shade,

a coffeehouse humming low,

bare feet in sand,

a body rising early just to move,

music hummed softly or shouted skyward,

windows down,

a child’s laughter breaking open the hour,

arms around someone I love, held longer than necessary

I refuse the mourning.

I resist the monotony—

knowing the machine keeps grinding,

knowing the day will ask its price,

and choosing anyway

to reclaim—intentionally—

the magic of everyday awe.

Dr. Carrie Morris is a retired educator now exploring small business ownership. Her writing has appeared in academic research journals but this will be her first published poem (Thanks, Redbud!). She enjoys traveling, visiting her family in Florida and Wisconsin, and scuba diving and kayaking in eastern NC where she lives.