She asked me to luncheon in fur. Far from
the loud laughter of men, our secret life stirred.
I remember her eyes, the slim rope of her spine.
This is your cup, she whispered, and this mine.
We drank the sweet hot liquid and talked dirty.
As she undressed me, her breasts were a mirror
and there were mirrors in the bed. She said Place
your legs around my neck, that’s right. Yes.
Carol Ann Duffy’s erotically coded excursion into the ample suggestiveness of ‘lunch’ is great and wicked fun! I am reminded unsurpisingly of Oscar Wilde’s surreal excursions into late 19th century ‘manners’ in his plays, where everything seems to stand for something else! Duffy’s vitality is pronounced throughout this poem- it reads like a bodice ripping romp and shows how at ease she can be when she is writing positively about sex.
Her opening act of remembrance seems a lingering homage to the her lover’s irresistible invitation. ‘She asked me to luncheon in fur.’ How delighted appears the poet to give over her power to another. This is a most playful, delicously balanced encounter, where hierachies are suspended and redundant.
The ostensible ordinariness and innocence of lunch is suffused by the ambiguity of the fur’-softly seductive assonance, creating several provocative scenarios including lover as diva, she wolf, and splendidly attired woman of society. And, as if these scenarios were not enough, and in Duffy they rarely are, then of course there is the posibility that they, the women are the ‘luncheon’ to be sexually enjoyed by the other. The location of the ‘fur’ and the ‘cup’ seem crucial to the encounter’s pleasure!
( More to add)