Whatever’s Left
It’ll likely
begin with someone
just happening to notice
differently the autumn
leaves lit
from behind toward
sunset, the light as if
wanting to push
through to whatever,
beneath the leaves, lies
hidden, as it
should, I think, though
I, too, find I miss
the secret parts.
Carl Phillips is the author of 17 books of poetry, most recently Scattered Snows, to the North (2024) and Then the War: and Selected Poems 2007-2020, which won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize. He lives on Cape Cod, in Massachusetts.