The subtitle tells you everything about the poem’s ambition: “A life affirming trifle.” This is a poem that knows it’s small and presents its smallness as a virtue. The title is a bait-and-switch—”Doo Doo” promises bathroom humor or complaint, and what the poem delivers is a dewy pastoral. The opening is pure sensory immersion: “When I step / into the dew / of the morning, / my toes squish / in the green lush.” The verb “squish” is perfectly chosen—it’s a child’s word for a child’s sensation, the feeling of wet grass between bare toes that adults rarely experience because adults wear shoes. The dog rolling in “the fresh / early smell— / laughing, / happy” is observed with the economy of a haiku: two adjectives, no qualification, the animal as an uncomplicated model of joy. The Muse appears “in the distance” but is identified not by face or form but by “the smile / in your eyes”—the poet recognizes her at a distance by an expression, which suggests deep familiarity. The cat is the poem’s scene-stealer: “whiskers dripping dew— / winks and whispers, / pet me, / purring.” The dew on the whiskers is a detail only an observer notices; the wink is the cat’s personality; “pet me” is the cat’s demand voiced by the poet. The Muse is addressed as “my Lady”—a formality that feels deliberately courtly in this wet, squishing, rolling, purring domestic morning. The title’s payoff arrives late: “There is no / doo doo, / only the lushness / of life / with you.” The joke is that the poet stepped outside expecting to encounter the literal hazards of a yard shared with pets and instead found only beauty. The doo doo is a metaphor for life’s mess, and the poem’s claim is that with the beloved present, the mess disappears—or at least becomes invisible under all that lushness. The closing elevates the domestic morning into the sacred: “I was grounded by the earth— / then I was / Baptized by the morning dew.” The capitalized “Baptized” is the poem’s one grand gesture, converting wet grass from nuisance to sacrament.

A poem that succeeds by being exactly what it promises—a trifle—and not a syllable more. The title is the poem’s best gambit: naming a love poem “Doo Doo” sets expectations so low that every subsequent image (dew, dog, cat, Muse, baptism) arrives as a surprise upgrade. “My toes squish / in the green lush” is a line that works through pure tactile specificity—the reader feels the grass. The dog rolling and laughing is sketched in three lines with no wasted words, and the cat with “whiskers dripping dew” is a snapshot worthy of a nature photographer. The Muse’s entrance—recognized by the smile in her eyes at a distance—is a lovely detail about long familiarity. The doo doo reveal (“There is no doo doo”) is a punchline and a thesis simultaneously: when love is present, the yard is clean. The closing baptism image is the poem’s one reach beyond the domestic, and it earns its grandeur by arriving after such deliberately small, ground-level imagery—bare feet, wet grass, a purring cat. The capitalized “Baptized” is the right call; lowercase would undersell the turn. Where the poem is slight—and it knows it—is in its middle passages, which present the morning scene without the compression or surprise that distinguishes Plahm’s strongest short work. The dog and cat vignettes are charming but not quite revelatory. But the poem’s self-awareness (calling itself a trifle, choosing a joke title) protects it from overreach. Not every poem needs to be a symphony; sometimes a poem’s job is to squish its toes in the grass and say thank you. This one does that with genuine warmth.