It amazes me how Duffy can tell a tale poetically that is both as whimsical and full of merriment as to appeal to a child, but in addition cast it with such profundity, citing the mute-dead, the stag, the cry of a baby, blood in a priest’s wine, the cloaked poet— references to Rossetti’s ‘In The Bleak Midwinter’. It’s beautiful work that proves what was already known, that Duffy is a poet laureate through and through.