Red (Sonnet 150)

Kuroda Seiki, Kuroda Kinenkan, Tokyo National Museum

So he stirred in his sleep with a fever
Not from illness but instant response
To the burning hands of a kind demon
On his famished frame, as chill as the moon

So when he’d awake, he’d see only red
The sky at sunrise, not rosy but red
The eyes of his love, not hazel but red
Those eyes are rubies, her tresses blood red

She now watches him rise, as from the dead
His faint beard now scarlet, bright as the flame
His lips hot in trembles, a frown he feigns
His limbs long and limber, ready to walk

Into the garden he had departed
The poppies and begonias now in bloom