poppies

• Weir employs the dramatic monologue to subvert traditional war poetry and provide an insight into the far-reaching destruction of war by adopting the perspective of a grieving mother.
• "steeled the softening / of my face"


  sibilance suggests internal emotions of the speaker as she is attempting to maintain composure for her son
• "all my words / flattened, rolled turned into felt"


  enjambment elucidates her lack of control over her debilitating emotions of grief
• "Before you'd left" "After you'd gone"


  the ambiguous euphemism for death connotes how she is unable to process reality of loss and grief
• "leaned against it like a wishbone"


  simile - connotes her fragility without her son, giving an empathetic and human view of civilian loss in addition to the experience of those directly involved in war.