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