Night Marriage
Carol Ann Duffy | 1955
- Present | Scotland
English
Romantic love
Suggested by: Fiona Shaw
When I turn off the light
and the dark mile between us
crumples and falls,
you slip from yourself
to wait for me in my sleep,
the face of the moon sinking into a cloud;
or I wake bereaved
from the long hours
I spend in your dreams,
an owl in the forest crying its soft vowels,
Dark fish swimming under the river's skin.
Night marriage. The small hours join us,
face to face as we sleep and dream;
the whole of the huge night is our room.
With grateful thanks to Carol
Ann Duffy who has allowed us to reproduce this poem.