Summary
The poem begins with the speaker's exclamation "Hot-eyed Mafia Queen!," referring to a poppy flower at the edge of a garden. The poppy flower "sways towards August," which means that the end of summer must be approaching. A bumble bee, climbing from the edge of the flower's first wilting petal, struggles to reach the flower's center. When he finally crawls inside, the poppy's petals "Embrace him helplessly," and the bee "bleats" in satisfaction.
Analysis
The speaker immediately lets us know that the poppy flower he sees isn't just any poppy flower: she's a "hot-eyed" "queen" who stands apart from the rest of the garden's foliage. The poppy's place at "the trim garden's edge" suggests that the flower exists at the threshold of orderly, decent beauty that inspires admiration, on the one side—and wild, unrestrained sexuality and sexual appeal, on the other. Although the poppy's beauty provokes an ardent exclamation from the speaker at this moment in time, we know from line 3 that her beauty will soon diminish: the flower "sways towards August," towards her death, which the end of summer will bring.
The bumble bee, who enters the scene in line 4, represents a male figure who falls for a woman's spell. He "clambers" into the flower's center, like a man stumbling after a drink or two towards a woman he finds attractive. The phrase "drunken, fractured goblet" refines the poppy's abstract description in the first line. We can picture the flower's delicate shape, petals extending from her dark eye, overlapping with the occasional thin gaps between them. By likening the poppy's form to a goblet, a cup customary used for wine, the speaker hints at the pleasure the bee will experience from the poppy's nectar, and the deep intoxication that arises from overindulgence.
As the speaker describes the bee's struggle to reach the center of the poppy, we learn that the poppy's beauty is already fading: although her petal is described as a "royal carpet," it is also "her first-about-to-fall." The "shrivel-edged" and "unhinged" petal imbues this "Mafia Queen" with a touch of vulnerability, a point of entry. We are reminded that the poppy "sways" towards her fading season, even as the bee ambles inside. When the bee reaches the poppy's center, his "thin/ Sizzling bleats of difficult enjoyment" signify his joyous celebration of his conquest. The revelry quickly becomes sexual: the poppy's "carnival paper skirts," her petals, hold him captive.
The word Hughes uses to describe the bee's motion, "clambers," suggests the bee's awkward urgency: he must reach the poppy's nectar when it's at its sweetest, before her petals fall completely. By reminding us in line 8 that the bee is inside the poppy "as she sways," the speaker again contributes to the poem's sense of urgency and sexual abandon. The poem's emphasis upon thresholds and transitory language suggests that part of the poppy's beauty comes from its transience: her appeal reaches its peak just as the first signs of her decline appear.
More lines are devoted to the first signs of the poppy's fading appeal than the pleasure each figure experiences. Although the poppy's petals envelop the bee, the poem's language keeps the figures separate. Not once are their actions described in unison. This detail, in addition to the speaker's tone and the wayward, happenstance nature of the bee and poppy's relationship, prevents any trace of emotional affect from entering the poem.
