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Tries to be patient with her husband's foolishness but eventually loses her respect for him, calling him "the fool/who wished for gold."
She remembers him with longing: "I miss most,/even now, his hands..."

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"Wasn't I beautiful?/Wasn't I fragrant and young?
Look at me now."

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She accuses him of undervaluing her: "What gets me now is...lack of thought for me. Pure selfishness."

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Recalls the events of her life (described in the poem) nonchalantly even though it includes her husbands death. "C'est la vie." Shows how cold she is/has become

Blinded by greed and bored with life. "et ect. et ect"

George

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It’s you I love,
perfect man, Greek God, my own;
but I know you’ll go, betray me, stray from home.

- Tiana

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"...You see, we were passionate then, // in those halcyon days; unwrapping each other, rapidly, // like presents, fast food."

- Claire

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In the mirror, I saw my eyes glitter.
I flung back the sticky red sheets,
and there, like I said – and ain’t life a bitch –
was his head on a platter.
-Valentina

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"We do our best,
we Queens, we mothers,
mothers of Queens."

The final 3 stanzas of Queen Herod highlights the determination of the mothers willing to do anything for their child, and emphasizes the facade of motherhood as behind their lovingly singing "lullabies", they "wade through blood" and have "daggers for eyes"

Dylee

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Silver and gold,
the loose change of herself,
glowed in the soft bowl of her face.

--

Some swaggering lad to break her heart,
some wincing prince to take her name away
and give a ring, a nothing, nowt in gold.

These two stanzas show how mothers perceive their daughters as treasures and worry about them meeting some immature husband who will take her identity away. The mother sees her daughter as the most precious gift, thus, the gold ring would be useless to her.

Dylee

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"That night, I dreamt I bore
his child, its perfect ore limbs, its little tongue
like a precious latch, its amber eyes
holding their pupils like flies. My dream-milk
burned my breasts."

This shows how she desperately wanted to be a mother and to be ablr to touch someone, however she knows she could not do that has her husband's greed has prevented her from having a child.

-Krishna

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"shacked up, split up
made up, hitched up"

These parallels and short phrases quicken the pace as Duffy wants to show how greed doesn't allow you to enjoy what is happening. That is why Mrs. Faust skims over her marriage as she herself feels that it does noy matter as much as the materialistic items she lists later, whose pace is more slowed down.

-Krishna

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"Lesson one that // night, // breath of the wolf in my ear, was the love poem."
"what little girl doesn't dearly love a wolf?"

The love that she has for the wolf is very prominent, but in a slightly sarcastic tone which hints at her intent; she wants to learn from the poet, and loves him for what he knows and can teach, but once he has taught everything he can, she finds him useless and doesn't love him anymore
- Eric

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'There were bullet tears in my eyes'
Lauren

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"What big ears he had! What big eyes he had! What teeth!"

The description of the wolf here shows Duffy's odd infatuation with this figure (that most would fear).
-Sonika

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'There were bullet tears in my eyes'
Lauren

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“my stockings ripped to shreds, scraps of red from my blazer / snagged on twig and branch”

and less subtly: "I clung till dawn to his thrashing fur”

- Caroline

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"And then I came home, the woman who married the fool
who wished for gold. "

- Caroline

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"My bride's breath soured, stank
in the grey bags of my lungs"

Talks about the decay of a marriage and how she (the wife) is portrayed badly. No longer in the honeymoon phase

- Caroline