Little poppies, little hell flames, <br />Do you do no harm? <br /> <br />You flicker. I cannot touch you. <br />I put my hands among the flames. Nothing burns <br /> <br />And it exhausts me to watch you <br />Flickering like that, wrinkly and clear red, like the skin of a mouth. <br /> <br />A mouth just bloodied. <br />Little bloody skirts! <br /> <br />There are fumes I cannot touch. <br />Where are your opiates, your nauseous capsules? <br /> <br />If I could bleed, or sleep! - <br />If my mouth could marry a hurt like that! <br /> <br />Or your liquors seep to me, in this glass capsule, <br />Dulling and stilling. <br /> <br />But colorless. Colorless.<br /><br />Sylvia Plath<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/poppies-in-july/
