When you teach me,
your hands bless the air
where chalk dust sparkles.
And when you talk,
the six wives of Henry VIII
stand in the room like bridesmaids,
or the Nile drifts past the classroom window,
the Pyramids baking like giant cakes
on the playing fields.
You teach with your voice,
so a tiger prowls from a poem
and pads between desks, black and gold
in the shadow and sunlight,
or the golden apples of the sun drop
from a branch in my mind's eye.
I bow my head again
to this tattered, doodled book
and learn what love is.
Other Carol Ann Duffy songs:
all Carol Ann Duffy songs all songs from 2019