Life Study, by Molly Peacock

Take a blank page and from the bottom draw

a line to the midpoint: now you have depth.

This is perspective. The line is distance.

In life that line is healing. It causes terror

to abrade. Why won’t my memory try to draw

3-dimensional pain on a tablet’s page?

Because healing moves memory into day.

Fully lighted, kindnesses appear to repay

some of the abuse. Now faces are appealing

and complex, their angles jumping into relief.

Now real rain enlivens vistas from the depths

of hopes deserted at too young an age. Trauma

redistributes its colors, old drama quelled

to tables laid for meals, now actually eaten.

You could say I’ve whitewashed my youth, since light

from the end of the tunnel washes back through:

as I draw I see not what I stumbled through,

but each illuminated site.

From “Original Love” by Molly Peacock. (Norton: $17.95; 91 pp.) 1995 Reprinted by permission.