Pauline

“When did your name
change from a proper noun
to a charm?

Its three vowels
like jewels
on the thread of my breath.

Its consonants
brushing my mouth
like a kiss.

I love your name.
I say it again and again
in this summer rain.

I see it,
discreet in the alphabet,
like a wish.

I pray it
into the night
till its letters are light.

I hear your name
rhyming, rhyming,
rhyming with everything.


"Name”
― Carol Ann Duffy, Rapture

“Love’s time’s beggar, but even a single hour,
bright as a dropped coin, makes love rich.
We find an hour together, spend it not on flowers
or wine, but the whole of the summer sky and a grass ditch.

For thousands of seconds we kiss; your hair
like treasure on the ground; the Midas light
turning your limbs to gold. Time slows, for here
we are millionaires, backhanding the night

so nothing dark will end our shining hour,
no jewel hold a candle to the cuckoo spit
hung from the blade of grass at your ear,
no chandelier or spotlight see you better lit

than here. Now. Time hates love, wants love poor,
but love spins gold, gold, gold from straw.”
― Carol Ann Duffy, Rapture

“Then he started his period.
One week in bed.
Two doctors in.
Three painkillers four times a day.
And later a letter to the powers-that-be
demanding full-paid menstrual leave twelve weeks per year.”
― Carol Ann Duffy, Selected Poems

“Now no discourse, except it be of Love;
Now I can break my fast, dine, sup and sleep
Upon the very naked name of Love.”
― William Shakespeare, The Two Gentlemen of Verona