Summary
While the bee revels in the poppy's center, the speaker says that already the poppy's seed pod, which will swell from the flower's center, "is cooking its drug." As the poppy embraces the bee, "Every breath" brings the poppy closer to her death, and her petals prepare to shed. The speaker notices a fly that rests on the poppy's petals, then returns his attention to the process by which the flower will die, leaving a seed pod behind.
Analysis
In line 12, the speaker turns his attention away from the poem's immediate action and focuses instead upon the seed pod brewing at the poppy's center. As the bee and the poppy engage in a sexual act, the poppy is pollinated, which means her petals will shed as the pod grows larger. By telling us that the poppy's "dark pod" is "Already... cooking its drug," the speaker emphasizes the thematic links between death, pleasure, and time in the poem. The word "drug" suggests the intoxicating pleasure of the act, while also reminds us that the poppy is the source of illicit pleasures for humans, too: the seed pod described is the source for opium and other pleasure-inducing drugs. "Every breath imperils" the poppy, because each second of pleasure brings her closer to decay. The enjambment in line 13, when the speaker ends upon "Her crucible," foregrounds the poppy's stature before again reminding us that she is also "falling apart," reinforcing the juxtaposition between the flower's intense appeal and her fragility.
When the speaker mentions the fly, the theme of death begins to override the sexual charge that best characterized the poem until this point. The momentary, albeit intense, pleasure experienced by both figures is underscored by a reminder of its transience. The line "Soon she'll throw off her skirts" combines the poppy's sexual abandon with her future resignation, while "Withering into vestal afterlife"—alluding to the vestal virgins, the protectors of the sacred fire in Rome—paradoxically links the poppy with chastity and holiness, reminding us that the passionate and momentary act also has a function in a larger, "timeless" order.
In the next stanza, the speaker elaborates upon the poppy's "vestal afterlife" through maternal imagery. The line "Bleeding inwardly" echoes line 12, where the poppy's seed pod is "cooking its drug." The "nectars" that nurture her seeds also drain her own life force, creating both a "cradle" and a "coffin." The word "offspring" is unsentimental, distanced, and anatomical, again preventing emotions or tenderness in the poem's tone. Although the growth of her "dark pod" means that more poppies will grow, it also means that this Mafia Queen's reign has expired.
