30 Mar TOUCHED by Molly Peacock
it’s another presence inside me I sense,
the dip of an oar, a canoe being launched.
I’m the oar, but I’m the water, and sense
at once initiation and response.
After you died, I felt you next to me,
and over months you entered gradually
into that lake and disappeared. Not gone,
but so internalized you’re not next to me.
You’re not the port, or the support; you’re done
being you, and my loneliness is so extreme
that I feel moved by almost anything,
even the forehead of a dog that leans
against my knee in an elevator, things
as brief as all the ways you would lean
against me getting a glass of water
at the sink. Everything touches me,
now that I’m not touched, but moved.
About the Poet
Molly Peacock is a poet, biographer, essayist, and writer of tales whose multi-genre literary life has taken her from her birthplace in Buffalo to New York City to Toronto, from poetry to prose, from words to words-and-pictures, and from lyric self-examination to curiosity about the lives of others.
She has taught at many universities and served as the president of the Poetry Society of America, where she began the Poetry in Motion program, which places poetry placards on subway cars and buses throughout American cities. She is the author of many books of poetry, including The Widow’s Crayon Box (2024), The Analyst (2017), The Second Blush (2008), and Cornucopia: New and Selected Poems 1975-2002. Her prose works include the story collection Alphabetique: 26 Characteristic Fictions (2014), the biography Paper Garden: Mrs. Delany Begins Her Life’s Work at 72 (2012), the guide How to Read a Poem & Start a Poetry Circle (1999), and the memoir Paradise, Piece by Piece (1998).
This poem is the first poem in her new book The Widow’s Crayon Box.
Related Event
- The Poetry Collection of the University Libraries at the University at Buffalo will present a poetry reading by and reception for Buffalo, NY native Molly Peacock to launch her new collection The Widow’s Crayon Box (W. W. Norton, 2024) on Wednesday, April 9, 2025, 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. in 420 Capen Hall on the University at Buffalo North Campus.Following the reading at 6:30 p.m., Molly Peacock will be available to sign books sold by Talking Leaves…Books. This event is cosponsored by Just Buffalo Literary Center and Talking Leaves..
The Poem of the Week feature is curated by literary legacy awardee R.D. Pohl.