by Olivia Dorsey Peacock

a letter for great-grandpa

your children insist i know nothing of survival

could not imagine tilling soil with hands raw excavating
life from snow the harshness of your words
waking at dawn caressing young hands that churned
cows’ milk into butter nursing
the wounds of a beaten and aging brother

could not imagine escaping fields of brown,
falling from golden heights
in kiss’s breath death resigning
to home under boulders trading for
incessant throbs crushed arm, crushed femur.

i know

i think of you often
torso dragging limbs across your fields, plow neglected
with the hardheadedness of those
sun-dried South Carolina fathers
refined by mountains calluses scented with limestone
dusted in soda ash painted in red clay
clinging to dignity always
behind eyes always, all those tears
an offering.

Olivia Dorsey Peacock is a family historian, poet, and tea maven based in North Carolina. She has received fellowships and support from The Watering Hole, the Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing, and the Arts & Science Council. She is currently serving as Charlotte Lit’s 2025 GoodLit Poetry Fellow and previously served as a 2025 Goodyear Arts Artist-in-Residence. Her writing has appeared in Lucky Jefferson, poetry.onl, and Shot Glass Journal. Follow her @ohdeepeacock and find her work at oliviapeacock.com.