The tulips are too red in the first place, they hurt me.

 The tulips should be behind bars like dangerous animals.
They are opening like the mouth of some great African cat,
And I am aware of my heart: it opens and closes
Its bowl of red blooms out of sheer love of me.
The water I taste is warm and salt, like the sea,
And comes from a country far away as health. 

Sylvia Plath  

Dark Thing

I am inhabited by a cry:
Nightly it flaps out
Looking, with its hooks, for something to love.

I am terrified by this dark thing
That sleeps in me;
All day I feel its soft, feathery turnings, its malignity.

______________________________

Sono abitata da un grido.
Di notte esce svolazzando
con i suoi uncini in cerca di qualcosa da amare.

Mi terrorizza questa cosa scura
che dorme in me;
tutto il giorno ne sento il tacito rivoltarsi piumato, la malignità.

Sylvia Plath - Elm.