The puzzle jug — an earthenware jug with a pierced neck and hidden syphon system that allows it to be drunk from only if the drinker knows the trick — appears in poems about wit, deception, and the pleasure of the riddled object; A poem about a tavern in the seventeenth or eighteenth century might describe the puzzle jug's performance: "they passed it to the stranger first — the neck full of holes, the liquid pouring everywhere but into the mouth, the table laughing"; The puzzle jug's design — pierced, decorated, apparently useless — is a poem in clay about the gap between appearance and function; In a poem about the culture of riddling and wit, the puzzle jug appears alongside the verbal puzzle: both require the solver to look past the obvious for the hidden logic; The slipware and delftware puzzle jugs of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries often bear inscriptions — "Within this jug there is good liquor / 'Tis fit for parson or for vicar" — making them already versified objects; A contemporary poem about a folk museum might describe a puzzle jug: "the solution is known now and the trick is no surprise — but the jug holds its secret posture, still presenting itself as a problem."