Much as breath does: Reading Molly Peacock's A Favor of Love
by Audrey Friedman
| Poem: | A Favor of Love | |
| Poet: | Molly Peacock | |
| Published in: | Poetry (August 2002 ); Cornucopia (2002) |
Had I not trusted the poetic instinct of Molly Peacock, I would have immediately reacted to the first three lines of A Favor of Love with distrust.
I would have felt resentment, like when someone tells me that they have a secret, enticing me into the mystery only to shut me out with, “I can't talk about it.” By the end of the poem, I knew that trusting Miss Peacock was appropriate.
It appears that she used the promise of intimacy along with this conversational tone, to lure the reader into the poem and the life of the poet, and make the concept of sacrifice more universal with her vagueness. A marital or other intimate relationship is based on promise and sacrifice, and to be too specific would make this poem more about the poet than about the human condition. The word sacrifice is repeated three times in stanza one. Miss Peacock is driving home the intent of the poem, though we cannot fully comprehend it until the end.
This sounds remarkably like baptism. To be cleansed in a religious sense, one assumes sin. Therefore, I imagine that there has been some transgression, most likely minor, that preceded the sacrifice, and the act of sacrifice would relieve the spouse of guilt and burden.
The narrator then rushes off to the market where we are placed in the midst of a beehive of activity and an array of colorful but mundane images, “watercress, asparagus, garlic, pecans” filling the poet's basket. At this point there is a sudden heightening of tension.
when a girl throws herself through the plastic door flaps
tears streaming down her face, while her boyfriend
catapults past the troughs of oranges screaming,
And Mr. Kim peers down his leprechaun nose
and Mrs. Kim stands in mountain pose
openly hating the girl for dying of an overdose
The boyfriend's demands for water remind me once again of baptism, and that is reinforced by Mr. Kim looking down at her in a way that makes me think of condescension. Meanwhile, Mrs. Kim assumes the girl is a drug abuser. Mrs. Kim's posture is imposing, foreboding, and embodies her hate. The produce originating from the girl's country, which Mrs. Kim also presumes to know, seem to symbolize her ancestors. For a person to do such despicable things to oneself in front of his/her people is even more shameful than doing it in private.
In the second stanza, I noted an abundance of ‘p' sounds (papayas, plunging, plums, purple, lollipop, eggplant). These sounds actually made me think of the sound of something makes when it drops, ‘plop', which the girl did. The image of the lollipop, however, is unexpected, and serves as a contrast to the lack of innocence the Kims perceived.
Again the sounds, later in the second stanza, serve a purpose.
The repeated ‘b' sound makes me feel the bubble forming, and also helps me to experience the hesitation and uncertainty of each struggling breath, almost like a stutter.
The vowel sounds in “boom” and “bubble” also help to contrast the loudness of “boom” (long vowel sound) and the tentative “bubble” (short vowel sound). Squeak was a great verb choice, for it not only serves to create a visual image, but also adds another sound.
I find it interesting that Peacock chose the format she did. Centered lines that seem to expand and contract, much as breath does, allowed a visual representation of the gasps, and the tension waiting for each of Marisol's breaths.
Color was also used cleverly, as the hues of the oxygen-deprived victim's skin turned from purple to plum to eggplant , and then a more human color . We see a deepening of the girl's purpling skin that shows us just how precarious a hold on life she has.
Later in the second stanza there are many more airy sounds, as in the vowel sounds and w's (sound, bellows, out, down, woolen, whack) which makes me think of the much desired deep inhalations which finally happen and restore life.
The transition from second to third stanza is one that takes the narrator back in her own life.
and it is a hard face, long and horsey.
As my sister was dying she called me Mommy.
I stand up in a mountain pose,
and she smiles up from a pile of plastic baskets.
I recall reading in Molly Peacock's memoir, Paradise, Piece by Piece, that she had a sister who was plagued by emotional problems. Her sister was both the victim of parental and spousal abuse, and also inflicted abuse on herself. She had substance addictions. This younger sister was very dependent on Molly, not only in childhood, but also in adulthood. She never assumed full responsibility for herself. Molly was thrust into the role of mother while still a child. Her own mother was often unavailable, especially once single and supporting her children and home herself. Now, long after the death of her sister, Molly possibly feels as if this whole scenario was déjà vu, where once again she is being pushed against her will into the same maternal role. Now her posture, referred to in an identical way as Mrs. Kim's, shows the resistance and resentment of a woman who does not want to be the mother.
Sound once again is assisting the words themselves in performing their functions, and the ‘p' sounds in pose, pile, and plastics feel a bit explosive, almost sounding like a push.
The poem ends with Peacock speaking “mommily” to Marisol, offering advice, and then the last stanza concludes with :
closing the cosmic circle begun at breakfast
when my husband made the promise I won't reveal.
Grown human beings making sacrifices
return to the universe a favor of love.
Peacock's use of alliteration in the first line of this segment (closing, cosmic, circle) not only gives a lyrical quality to the line, but has the hard end-stop sound that clanks like the closing of a door. Again, sound enhances meaning. The poem has come full circle, and returns to the concepts of sacrificial offerings and the resulting cleansing. Peacock has now made a sacrifice herself, and has paid the universe back for what she has been given, restoring balance. She has honored throughout the poem the privacy and sanctity of the marriage. Perhaps the purification of the soul and unburdening of the guilt that results from offering a sacrifice was not only cleansing her of the day's transgressions, but of the responsibility of not effectively solving her sister's problems or preventing her death.
Peacock creates a satisfying structure that she uses to build the drama. She begins with a personal situation between husband and wife, and then opens the doors into the outside world. The situation we find at the market is not only fraught with tension, but seems to prove the poet's point about sacrifice: they “fill a person with simple, healing water.” We find that the outside experience has a correlation to a disturbing personal memory. Peacock leaves us by “closing the cosmic circle,” a symbolic hug that assures me that all is well in her world for now. I understand that Peacock has left Kim's market with much more than what was on her shopping list.
Audrey Friedman is an 8th grade English teacher at Davisville Middle School
in North Kingstown, RI . She received an MFA in Poetry from Vermont College
in January, 2005. Audrey has served as an Associate Editor for "Merlyn's Pen
Magazine,"
and her work has been published in a number of literary journals including
California Quarterly,
The Broad River Review, The Newport Review,
The Griffin, Urban Spaghetti, and The Comstock Review.