Molly Peacock (born June 30, 1947) is an American-Canadian poet, essayist and creative nonfiction writer.
She was an honorary fellow at The Johns Hopkins University, served as Poet-in-Residence at The American Poets’ Corner, Cathedral of St. John the Divine, in New York City, and received awards from the Danforth Foundation, the Ingram Merrill Foundation, the New York Foundation for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Woodrow Wilson Foundation. Peacock has performed her one-woman show in poems, The Shimmering Verge, Off Broadway and throughout North America.
DECIDING TO END YOUR LIFE, YOU THANK ME
Molly Peacock
MAID: Medical Assistance in Dying, Toronto
When you looked up and said, “Thank you,” I saw
your gratitude rise over us like rain.
It seemed external to us both–an awe
of what we were about to do (a sane
alternative to modern agony).
The dryness between us had been like climate,
like desiccation, like chapped lips only
chapped everything. You’d stopped being a mate,
stopped thanking. I’d begun drying up rough
as a towel in wind.
So, your thank you was rain.
It swept through like a front–and within…
I stood getting soaked to a rapid bloom,
knowing you knew the wasteland we’d been in,
and, from this, we’d make your desert garden.
==========
THE RETURN
Molly Peacock
When I open my legs to let you seek,
seek inside me, seeking more, I think
“What are you looking for?” and feel it will
be hid from me, whatever it is, still
or rapidly moving beyond my frequency.
Then I declare you a mystery
and stop myself from moving and hold still
until you can find your orgasm. Peak
is partly what you look for, and the brink
you love to come to and return to must
be part of it, too, thrust, build, the trust
that brings me, surprised, to a brink of my own…
I must be blind to something of my own
you recognize and look for. A diamond
speaks in a way through its beams, though it’s dumb
to the brilliance it reflects. A gem at the back
of the cave must tell you, “Yes, you can go back.”