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 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.