A Poem for a Thursday #157

Carol Ann Duffy is one of my favorite discoveries over the last few years of posting poetry. I have found that I especially enjoy poetry that sounds as if someone is simply talking to me. I think, for me, that is the best thing about poetry. It seems to say the things we all think but in words we can never find. When I first started posting a poem a week I thought poetry wasn’t really for me and it would be a short-lived project. Now, 157 poems later, the range of poetry I like continues to expand. Maybe I should take up art appreciation next.

I'll take your hand, the left,
and ask that it still have life
to hold my hand, the right, 
as I walk alone where we walked,
or to lie all night on my breast,
at rest, or to stop all talk with a finger
pressed to my lips.

I'll take your lips,
ask, when I close my eyes, as though
in prayer, that they ripen out of the air
to be there again on mine,
or to say my name, or to smile, or to kiss
the sleep from my eyes. I'll take

your eyes,
nohting like, lovelier under, the sun,
and ask that they wake to see, to look
at me, even to cry, so long as I feel their tears
on your face, warm rain on a rose.

Your face I'll take, asleep, ask that I learn,
by heart, the tip of your nose; or awake, and ask
that I touch with my tongue the soft buds of the lobes 
of your ears

and I'll take them, too
ask that they feel my breath shape
into living words, that they hear.

I'll take your breath
and ask that it comes and goes, comes and goes, forever,

like the blush under your cheek, and I'll even settle for that. Whatever.

Whatever
Carol Ann Duffy