Name by Carol Ann Duffy

When did your name

change from a proper noun

to a charm?

Its three vowels

like jewels

on the thread of my breath.

Its consonants

brushing my mouth

like a kiss.

I love your name.

I say it again and again

in this summer rain.

I see it,

discreet in the alphabet,

like a wish.

I pray it

into the night

till its letters are light.

I hear your name

rhyming, rhyming,

rhyming with everything.

· Carol Ann Duffy this week won the TS Eliot prize. This poem is from her collection Rapture, published by Picador, price £12.99