Sylvia Plath - Poppies in July
From ZuluNotes - Free Leaving Cert Notes
The Poem
- 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.
