Eating the Peach

Eating the peach, I feel like a murderer.
Time and darkness mean nothing to me,
moving forward and back with my white enameled teeth
and bloated tongue sating themselves on
moist, pulpy flesh. When I suck at the pit that resembles
a small mammal's skull, it erases all memory
of trouble and strife, of loneliness and the blindings
of erotic love, and of the blueprint of a world in which man, hater of reason, cannot make
things right again. Eating the peach, I feel the long
wandering, my human hand—once fin and paw—
reaching through and across the allegory of Eden,
mud, boredom, and disease, to bees, solitude,
and a thousand hairs of grass blowing by chill waters.

~Henri Cole