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Riddle in the Garden
Robert Penn Warren

My mind is intact, but the shapes
of the world change, the peach
has released the bough and at last
makes full confession, its pudeur
had departed like peach-fuzz wiped off, and

We now know how the hot sweet-
ness of flesh and the juice-dark hug
the rough peach-pit, we know its most
suicidal yearnings, it wants
to suffer extremely, it

Loves God, and I warn you, do not
touch that plum, it will burn you, a blister
will be on your finger, and you will
put the finger to your lips for relief—oh, do
be careful not to break that soft

Gray bulge of blister like fruit-skin, for
exposing that inwardness will
increase your pain, for you
are part of this world. You think
I am speaking in riddles. But I am not, for

The world means only itself.

 
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