Lady Writing a Letter with her Maid by Johannes Vermeer c.1670

Poem

Nina and Vermeer in Dublin

The elongated creaks and groans
of the varnished floor
of the National Gallery,
waxed and polished to their spit-clean
ending as grade school classes,
teenage art students and mid-day
browsers parade past
the painting hung
in the middle of section 40,
a Beit gift,
paid only stolen chance
glances, unadorned, as if to say, ‘Stop
here only if you see the value
in illumination.’

Through left over pall
from the mid-morning
shadow, after overcast days,
her eyes adjust to the painting,
to the tossed items on the white,
gray and charcoal tiles:
the purse, the wax, the seal, the letter.

The key is in her hand,
the seal on the floor.

In the painting the overflowing sun
highlights a view of despair
or air of rebuke,
heart in repair, the lady
and her maid basking in mosaic
of pearl-flecked sunlight, shadow.

The key is below the folded arms,
the letter on the floor.

Through high glazed windows
bright, washed faces, tears,
birth

of clarity: the child
in the painting within
a painting that breathes,
communicates with naked
faith and brushed hope

and where Nina sits cross-legged,
the atrium light tapers and reflects
from her white paper journal
and metallic pen.

Poem

Thirsty

The cool water drips
staccato
out of
the green
garden hose
onto
her tongue.

She swallows more air

than water, her throat
a gurgle
of guttural clucks
until I thrust my thumb
in the hose opening,
a sluice. My hand
opens the valve.
Flabbergasted, she grabs
my wrist and pulls. Water falls
on her face
creating small
creeks, rivulets, tear
streaks down her cheeks,
neck, collarbone and t-shirt.

All “I’s” flushed,
I twist the spigot off. She
laughs; thirst slaked.

nice hats

Poem

Hitherto

the man
coming
and going
in the night
will be-
come
a pillar
of desire
or thirst
for skin
or dew
on morning
grass gone
astray.