I.

A cloud of remnant flames that sway
      on slender stalks above a mound
      of green entangled frond on frond
whose petals droop and drop away

to lie in tatters on the grass ~
      while still the heavy-headed blooms
      imbue the air with drowsy fumes
that linger long before they pass.

The poppies rise, unfurl and swell
      and spread their petals to the sun
      till every hue is all undone
and every husk a hollow shell.

                 II.

Rossetti to his Lizzie gave
      elixir of the poppy’s bloom,
      displacing all her pain with gloom
and bedding her within a grave,

but ere the lid was hammered tight
      he lay his sonnets at her cheek
      as though her muted lips might speak
his lyrics to the airless night.

At length a season passed away ~
      the grass upon her grave stood tall ~
      Rossetti could not sleep at all
for dreaming of her where she lay.

He quelled his sorrow and regret
      with little sips of laudenum ~
      elixir of the poppy’s bloom
that wrapt and held him in its net

and drew him into visions such
      as only thralls to beauty see,
      that verge upon insanity
and touch what only spirits touch ~

then dead at last to all but art,
      as though possessed, he drew and drew,
      his every line a root that grew
around and through her buried heart.

                III.

The light that pierced her deathly sleep
      and fell upon her dreamless eyes
      was not of angels come to prise
her body from the musty deep

but only of Rossetti’s friends
      who sought to wrest the sonnets from
      the fastness of oblivion
and so undo a noble end.

On Highgate’s old and holy ground
      they knelt beside her open grave,
      disciples of the holy cave
who could not speak of what they found

except the hair of poppy red
      that down upon her shoulders spilled
      in such luxuriance it filled
the confines of her coffin-bed.

                IV.

Within a dim and airless hall
      within an airless gallery,
      her portrait hangs for all to see,
it casts a melancholy pall ~

of sad serenity composed,
      her face conveys a deathly calm,
      a poppy lies upon her palm,
her upward-gazing eyes are closed.