You
By Carol Ann Duffy
Uninvited, the thought of you stayed too late in my head, *opens on negative note
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 *sibilance
like a charm, like a spell.
Falling in love
is glamorous hell; the crouched, parched heart *oxymoron
like a tiger ready to kill; a flame’s fierce licks under the skin.
Into my life, larger than life, beautiful, you strolled in.
I hid in my ordinary days, in the long grass of routine, *loss of self
in my camouflage rooms. You sprawled in my gaze,
staring back from anyone’s face, from the shape of a cloud, *”My Last Duchess”
from the pining, earth-struck moon which gapes at me
and I open the bedroom door. The curtains stir. There you are
on the bed, like a gift, like a touchable dream. *similes',
First Person Narrative (unlike the other poems in Rapture)
“You” is a Shakespearian sonnet, comprised of four quatrains and a rhyming
couplet, which is a traditional poetic form when discussing the theme of love. The
dark and animalistic tones of Duffy’s ‘love’ however contrasts with the traditional
portrayals of love. The choice of the sonnet form could therefore be interpreted
By Carol Ann Duffy
Uninvited, the thought of you stayed too late in my head, *opens on negative note
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 *sibilance
like a charm, like a spell.
Falling in love
is glamorous hell; the crouched, parched heart *oxymoron
like a tiger ready to kill; a flame’s fierce licks under the skin.
Into my life, larger than life, beautiful, you strolled in.
I hid in my ordinary days, in the long grass of routine, *loss of self
in my camouflage rooms. You sprawled in my gaze,
staring back from anyone’s face, from the shape of a cloud, *”My Last Duchess”
from the pining, earth-struck moon which gapes at me
and I open the bedroom door. The curtains stir. There you are
on the bed, like a gift, like a touchable dream. *similes',
First Person Narrative (unlike the other poems in Rapture)
“You” is a Shakespearian sonnet, comprised of four quatrains and a rhyming
couplet, which is a traditional poetic form when discussing the theme of love. The
dark and animalistic tones of Duffy’s ‘love’ however contrasts with the traditional
portrayals of love. The choice of the sonnet form could therefore be interpreted
