I’ll give you the T-shirt
I found with a cartoon cat on the front,
drawn to appear
like the cat has poked its head
out the patch pocket.
I don’t trust Manila’s
postal service—nor Alabama’s
postal service—
to deliver the gift in this lifetime;
so I’ll keep it
in a drawer
[like a ticket untorn]
until we meet again,
in some park, in some city, in the open air—
where you drape the shirt across
your chest,
sizing it up, having a laugh, and we
embrace,
with this stupid-looking cat
pressed
between your heart
and mine.
Brian Phillip Whalen’s debut collection, Semiotic Love [Stories], was named one of the Best Books of 2021 by Kirkus Reviews. His second book, In Each Breath a Darkness [a memoir], forthcoming from WTAW Press, chronicles his sister’s drug addiction and death-by-overdose. Brian's work appears or is forthcoming in The Southern Review, Lit Hub, Creative Nonfiction, Copper Nickel, Gulf Coast, Poets.org, and elsewhere. He's an Assistant Professor of English at Mount St. Joseph University in Cincinnati.