An anxious dress
Like a spring crocus:
Violently violet
Inside and outside.

Its cold silk,
Snake-like and pure,
Born, endured
Like a straightjacket

By my hot sinful
Skin.
Both
Smell of myself;

That is, of life
With death inside.
My soul, living bird,
Can you rend them?

Carolina Ilica, from **The Short Poem of My Long Life