Poppies in July

Poppies in July

Little poppies, little hell flames,   

Do you do no harm?

You flicker. I cannot touch you.

I put my hands among the flames. Nothing burns.

And it exhausts me to watch you

Flickering like that, wrinkly and clear red, like the skin of a mouth.

A mouth just bloodied.   

Little bloody skirts!

There are fumes that I cannot touch.

Where are your opiates, your nauseous capsules?

If I could bleed, or sleep!——

If my mouth could marry a hurt like that!

Or your liquors seep to me, in this glass capsule,   

Dulling and stilling.

But colorless. Colorless.



        Sylvia Plath