In the case of Molly Peacock's "Desire," the primal instinct of procreation lies in the separation of reason from feeling; in this context, desire becomes "but more raw / and blinder and younger and more divine, too, / than the tamed wild -- it's the drive for what is real, / deeper than the brain's detail: the drive to feel." (Desire: 11-14) Here, "what is real" is a metaphorical reference to the instinctual drive that supports and amplifies the feeling of desire; "the drive to feel" designates the innermost aspect of what makes us human.
Molly Peacock's poem "Desire" focuses on the abstract notion of sexual desire, on what drives it and what its manifestations are. She does not provide an example - as in the case of Ackerman - of how sexual desire operates, and its ways of expression between two lovers but adopts the same theoretical standpoint on desire, in the sense that Peacock also sees it as a feeling whose existence...
Peacock's approach to desire is less direct than in the case of Ackerman who reveals the most intimate and sexually charged mechanisms of desire. Peacock sees sexual desire, lust, as a combination of "visceral frankincense and animal myrrh" (Desire: 4) i.e. between reason and instinct, between the very aspect which separates humans from animals, and the animal instinct which lies in all of us. Ackerman does not aim at deconstructing the feeling of desire, but to illustrate it as vividly as possible. Her poem exudes a feeling of tranquility and peace which are enhanced to their fullest by the author.
Ackerman, Diane. A fine, a Private Place. Available online: http://satterthwaite.info/Poetry/afineaplace.html
Peacock, Molly. Desire. Available online: http://poetrynet.org/month/archive/peacock/desire.html
