Brian Phillip Whalen
after Czeslaw Milosz and James Wright
slow leaf
on a cold                                       October morning
baby daughter’s peach-
sweet hands rake                          the cotton
weave                                             there will be no other end
of the world                                   no
pleasure than
to waste                                        each miraculous hour
Brian Phillip Whalen’s writing appears in The Southern Review, Spillway, Mid-American Review, North American Review, Cherry Tree, Fiction International, Poets.org, and elsewhere. Brian received his PhD from SUNY Albany and is a lecturer in the English Department. He lives in upstate New York with his wife and daughter and teaches creative writing workshops in regional libraries.