I'll miss talking with you this way.


Dialogue

She sits with one hand poised against her head, the
other turning an old ring to the light
for hours our talk has beaten
like rain against the screens
a sense of August and heat-lighting
I get up, go to make tea, come back
we look at each other
then she says (and this is what I live through
over and over) - she says: I do not know
if sex is an illusion
I do not know
who I was when I did those things
or who I said I was
or whether I willed to feel
what i had read about
or who in fact was there with me
or whether i knew, even then
that there was doubt about these things -

-- Adrienne Rich

x

Prayer

Somedays, although we cannot pray, a prayer
Utters its self. So, a woman will lift
Her head from the sieve of her hands and stare
At the minims sung by a tree, a sudden gift.

Some nights, although we are faithless, the truth
Enters our hearts, that small familiar pain;
Then a man will stand stock-still, hearing his youth
In the distant latin chanting of a train.

Pray for us now. Grade 1 piano scales
Console the lodger looking out across
A midlands town. Then dusk, and someone calls
A child’s name as though they named their loss.

Darkness outside. Inside, the radio’s prayer-
Rockall. Malin. Dogger. Finisterre.

-- Carol Ann Duffy