Illustration Friday - Red

Poppies in July - Sylvia Plath



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.