The Second Blush: Poems

by Molly Peacock

Overview

“Peacock is in peak form in these seductive poems that swing and twirl . . . valiant, trenchant, funny, and on point.”—Booklist

Demonstrating once again her “luxuriantly sensual imagination” (Washington Post), Molly Peacock celebrates marriage and a two-track life with the man who became her husband.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393337679
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	12/21/2009
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	86
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.10(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

Molly Peacock is the author of eight collections of poetry, including The Analyst: Poems and Cornucopia: New and Selected Poems. She lives in Toronto, Canada.

Read an Excerpt

Of Night
A city mouse darts from the paws of night.
A body drops from the jaws of night.
A woman denies the laws of night,
awake and trapped in the was of night.
A young man turns in the gauze of night,
unraveling the cause of night:
that days extend their claws at night
to re-enact old wars at night,
though dreams can heal old sores at night
and Spring begins its thaw at night,
while worry bones are gnawed at night.
He sips her through a straw at night.
Verbs whisper in the clause of night.
A finger to her lips
the pause of night.


Marriage
I watch my husband at a party,
a shy boy become a man at ease at last.
Success freshens his face, the boy now free
to pass beneath his expressions
as if slipping under a fence.
I used to slip under a fence
to swim in a stream-fed pond
and laze in the water till shocked
and delighted by a cold spot I swam through.
That's what his face is like,
infused by a source inside him.
I know I have a part in it,
just as I was part of the pond
where I loved to swim.


The Flaw
The best thing about a hand-made pattern
is the flaw.
Sooner or later in a hand-loomed rug,
among the squares and flattened triangles,
a little red nub might soar above a blue field,
or a purple cross might sneak in between
the neat ochre teeth of the border.
The flaw we live by, the wrong color floss,
now wreathes among the uniform strands
and, because it does not match,
makes a red bird fly,
turning blue field into sky.
It is almost, after long silence, a word
spoken aloud, a hand saying throughthe flaw,
I’m alive, discovered by your eye.

Reading Group Guide

Popular poet and author of the acclaimed memoir Paradise Piece by Piece, Molly Peacock tracks the vicissitudes of midlife marriage in her saucy, vulnerable, philosophical sixth collection, her first to be published in Canada. These lyrical, playful, moving poems focus on illuminating the territory of relationships, while always revolving around the deeper questions about how we love and how love affects the way we live.

Published in the U.S. by W.W. Norton.

Editorial Reviews

"Peacock’s compact philosophical meditations . . . transcend their mundane origins with assured eloquence and an almost startling subtlety."— Library Journal

From the Publisher