M A R G I E  The American Journal of Poetry     www.margiereview.com

Published Annually in the Fall                                     MARGIE  P. O. BOX 250, CHESTERFIELD, MO 63006-0250

                                    Antarctica                                  

I woke to the voice of my dead sister.

She was cold, she said, colder than she’d

ever been in life.  Eight years dead – freed

from being used by our father, or so

I thought until I heard her.

   You by the door,

ready to leave this poem, stay with me.

Here I am demanding that you listen

as she asks that I listen from beyond.

She had no choice.  (That is living death, isn’t it?)

Antarctica, the place without choice. 

Why,

why are you still down there?  I call,

Haven’t you been reborn by now? 

Turned back to a blonde eight-year old

tumbling down a hill . . . .

                                                  Oh reader,

excuse me.  I have presumed on you

once again.  Can’t you help me

heave the heavy lid of this box

and lift the blanket out, then help me

toss it down to the end of the world?

MOLLY PEACOCK is the author of five volumes of poetry, including Cornucopia: New & Selected Poems, published by W.W. Norton and Company.  She has served as Poet-in-Residence at The American Poets’ Corner, Cathedral of St. John the Divine and as President of The Poetry Society of America.  She teaches at the Spalding University MFA Program.  Currently she is touring with her one-woman show in poems, “The Shimmering Verge.”