| 1 |
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 |
| |
|
| 5 |
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. |
| 10 |
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. |
| |
|
| 15 |
But colorless. Colorless. |