Rapture by Carol Ann Duffy

"I tend the mobile now like an injured bird"

"We text, text, text"

"Our significant words"

"I re-read your first, your second, your third"

"your small **"

"Feeling absurd"

"Arrive with a broken chord"

"Nothing my thumbs press will ever be heard"

"change from a proper noun to a charm?"

"Its three vowels like jewels"

"Its consonants brushing my mouth like a kiss"

"I love you name" 

"I say it again and again"

"I pray it into the night"

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

"There were flowers at the edge of the forest..."

"upturned petals. I followed you in, under the sighing, restless trees"

"my whole life vanished"

"shimmering cloth"

"then dressed again in the gowns of the moon"

"We knelt in the leaves, kissed, kissed"

"rise again and go deeper"

"my childhood shrank"

"glow-worm of light"

"thorns on my breast, rain in my mouth, loam on my bare feet, rough bark grazing my back"

"waist deep, in a stream, pulling me in, so I swam".

"You were the water, the wind"

"I am there now, lost in the forest, dwarfed by the giant trees. Find me"

"Down by the river, under the trees, love waits for me"

"journeying years of my time and arrive"

"a blessing of rain"

"river stirs and turns, consoling and fondling itself"

"the heron bows its head on the bank"

"I drop my past on the grass and open my arms"

"open my mouth, wordless at last meeting"

"shy of a prayer"

"I feel love come to my arms and cover my mouth"

"feel my soul swoop and ease itself into my skin"

"Love's time's beggar"

"bright as a dropped coin, makes love rich"

"spend it not on flowers, or wine, but the whole of the summer sky"

"For thousands of seconds we kiss"

"your hair like a treasure on the ground; the Midas light turning your limbs to gold"

"we are millionaires, backhanding the night"

"end our shining hour"

"no jewel hold a candle to the cuckoo spit"

"no chandelier or spotlight see you better lit"

"Time hates love, wants love poor, but love spins gold, gold, gold from straw." 

"I found the words at the back of a drawer"

"wrapped in black cloth"

"like three rings slipped from a dead woman's hand, cold, dull gold"

"I had held them before       years ago"

"I touched the first to my lips, the second, the third"

"like a sacrament, like a pledge, like a kiss"

"warmed them"

"small words"

"I rubbed at them till they gleamed"

"I love you, I love you, I love you as though they were new". 

"Exhausts itself"

"Longs for the sleep of words"

"to lie on a white sheet, at rest in the language"

"one hour with thee"

"Till love gives in and speaks"

"dear heart, how like you this?"

"love's lips pursed to quotation marks"

"love's light fading, darkening"

"blank as ink on a page"

"Till love is all in the mind"

"O my America!"

"my new-found land - "

"come live with me"

"behold, thou art fair"

"not there, except in a poem"

"known by heart like a prayer"

"the desire of the moth for the star"

"I wake to a dark hour out of time"

"No stars in this black sky, no moon to speak of, no name"

"or number to the hour"

"no skelf of light"

"What do I have            to help me"

"without spell or prayer,"

"endure this hour, endless, heartless, anonymous"

"the death of love?"

"the air made famous where you stood"

"the hour it took you"

"to make a ring of grass and marry me."

"I say your name"

"It is a key, unlocking all the dark"

"death swings open on its hinge"

"I hear a bird begin its song"

"piercing the hour"

"first light this Christmas dawn"

"a gift, the blush of memory."