i wander into the night
the silence holds me
almost comforts me
as when she holds my hand

— equusignis

calla

there is a delicate thing in my bed
the room's air wants to
move when she breathes
the gauzy curtains want to
fan her calla lily skin
outside the dawn light
is trying to graze her twisted locks
i watch her scapula
sigh with each breath and
find the golden mean embedded
in the space between us

27 April 2010

woke with your name

YOU

Uninvited, the thought of you stayed too late in my head.
so I went to bed, dreaming you hard, hard, woke with your name,
like tears, soft, salt, on my lips, the sound of its bright syllables
like a charm, like a spell.

Falling in love
is glamorous hell: the crouched, parched heart
like a tiger, ready to kill; a flame’s fierce licks under the skin.
into my life, larger than life, you strolled in.

I hid in my ordinary days, in the long grass of routine,
in my camouflage rooms. You sprawled in my gaze,
staring back from anyone’s face, from the shape of a cloud,
from the pining, earth-struck moon which gapes at me

as I open the bedroom door. The curtains stir. There you are
on the bed, like gift, like a touchable dream.

— Carol Ann Duffy

Duffy became Britain's Poet Laureate today. The first woman to hold the post in its 341 year history.