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“A Dish of Peaches in Russia” by Wallace Stevens 🇺🇸 (2 Oct 1879 – 2 Aug 1955)
With my whole body I taste these peaches,
I touch them and smell them. Who speaks?
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I absorb them as the Angevine
Absorbs Aniou. I see them as a lover sees,
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As a young lover sees the first buds of spring
And as the black Spaniard plays his guitar.
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Who speaks? But it must be that I,
That animal, that Russian, that exile, from whom
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The bells of the chapel pullulate sounds at
Heart. The peaches are large and round,
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Ah! and red; and they have peach fuzz, ah!
They are full of juice and the skin is soft.
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They are full of the colors of my village
And of fair weather, summer, dew, peace.
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The room is quiet where they are.
The windows are open. The sunlight fills
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The curtains. Even the drifting of the curtains,
Slight as it is, disturbs me. I did not know
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That such ferocities could tear
One self from another, as these peaches do.