The day after, a man holds a door open for me
and when I say, “Thank you”, he answers,
“My pleasure”.
A woman pays for my bananas
unasked and for no reason.
I give five dollars to a homeless man
standing on the traffic median
and in that moment, when our fingers both hold
the offered bill, we say “Bless you” in unison
and I let go.
The woman who cuts my hair has posted
a hand-lettered sign on her mirror.
“I cannot talk about politics,” it says.
“Please don’t ask.”
And so, we talk about other things.
Gardening and home.
What’s for dinner.
Plans for the weekend.
All around me, all day, I hear people talk
of other things.
Tender things.
Daily things.
Healing things.
The world feels softer
for the hardness of yesterday.
We blink at the sun after a storm,
and we hold each other
like newborns,
cradling our soft, vulnerable skulls
in the palms of our hands,
trying not to let go
as we are passed from one to another.
–
Nancy Peacock’s first novel, Life Without Water, was chosen as a New York Times Notable Book. She followed it with two novels and a memoir. She is currently morphing from fiction writer to poet. In 2018, she served as North Carolina’s Piedmont Laureate. Peacock believes in building a robust writing community and for twenty-five years has taught a free Prompt Writing class in local bookstores and now on Zoom.
