Duffy, Carol Ann, 'Small Female Skull' in Mean Time

My favourite lines:

• "I see the scar where I fell for sheer love | down treacherous stairs, and read that shattering day like braille"

• "why do i kiss it on the brow, my warm lips to its papery bone"

• "Love, i murmur to my skull, then louder, other grand words [...] downstairs they will think I have lost my mind."

Reasons I like it:

1. introspective verse

2. the theme of memento mori

3. the ways in which emotions are descirbed; loss, love, confusion, pain.

Link to full poem