Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window

A sumptuous poem for 2024's closing act

Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window. Jan Vermeer van Delft (1657-59).

As the year draws to a close, I’m sharing one of my poems, which appeared in the fall issue of The Brussels Review. I was inspired by the discovery a few years ago of the painting-within-the-painting—meaning, the painting on the wall above the young woman’s head—which Vermeer removed in the final version. It was rediscovered during a conservation project.

What did the boy angel signify, and why did Vermeer remove him? I dreamed my way into the story this painting tells…

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I. Lover/Woman

Rising with the cool gray dawn’s first light,

she splashes cold water onto her face from a white basin.

On haunches, clutching the folds of her nightgown,

she splashes hot piss into a blue basin.

Her toilette is careless, the mustard sleeves of her dress

wrinkled, though she tames her rowdy gold curls in a bun,

determined to bring order to the bits of universe,

such precious few bits, as she can bend to her will.

Her eyes drilled by a headache induced by a night

overtaken by dreams of the letter,

its dull parchment growing into a monstrous blanket

that smothers her in its grip, the oncoming silence of death,

until dry fingers send bedclothes sailing to the floor

and she pushes away visions of encroaching enclosure.

The letter arrived yesterday, damp and crumpled,

its scripted voicings postponed in a bid to hush time.

Now, just now, the white-gray light like soiled linen

blows silvery dust motes through the open window.

She would await the yellower light of an open sun

or the steel white of a sheltering full moon,

but the letter in her hands now with inky insistence

commands her post-nocturnal attention.

No more hiding in the shadows of sleep or deep

inside the black folds of the room, shutters drawn.

She reads two-thirds down the page before a hot

flush stings her cheeks to scalding crimson.

Her lover is not arriving to take her from the room

where the putto gazes impassively overhead.

She needn’t turn her head toward the wall

where the fat putto performs his fake Cupidic virtue.

For she already knows the putto’s serene indifference

mirrors her lover’s effortless destruction of expectation.

The boy angel and the lover mocking her together:

The boy pretending to privilege love over deceit,

the lover couching his relieved relinquishment

in flowery words of regret and painful duty.

She already knows the nightmare was harbinger

of a future beyond the reach of her lover’s arms,

her blush a blossom of ecstatic relief—her soul’s

narrow escape from a forever entrapment.

No entangled mermaid, she, her tresses caught

in the fenced rails of her half-drained swamp-home

while men in wooden shoes gawp at her beauty

until she dies of livid embarrassment.

She wishes for the white-gray morning light

to prevail through the window just like this.

The light that dapples the off-white wall,

heightens the folds of the mustard curtain,

that glistens on the skins of apples, peaches, quinces

and the lip of their blue delft bowl.

The light that brings life to her smooth young face.

She will walk out into that white light alone.

II. Putto/Trickster

Bad Boy.

Bulging Boisterous Bastard Boy.

My babycock is mere misdirection.

See how I spurt dies irae.

I am Power: chubby muscles uplift looped garlands

for all eternity—garlands as fat as the Cock in my Mind.

I am Cherub, containing multitudes.

Young Male as Godhead.

Genii: Interferer. Infiltrator. Spy.

Mischief-Maker and Delight-Bringer.

Winged Ego, flitting beyond mortal reach,

bearing luscious fruits and fragrant flowers

to the countryside where my cousin, Hellequin,

the Devil’s Emissary, chases the damned to Hell.

I enjoy watching, wings a-flutter, all dimpled smiles.

But here you are, in the light-bathed room,

more chaser than chased, sweetheart.

In your black-mustard confection, you ride the morning light

like a Virgin ravished by her Bull until night returns,

your golden ringlets disheveled as the last ray of twilight

withdraws, leaving you spent.

Burn the letter. Don’t burn the letter.

Slash the canvas of my likeness with a paring knife.

Nothing alters what I am to you:

Your spiritelli, injecting lust, hunger, and jealousy

into the blood of your veins.

Your erote-putto, stuffing love into your resisting heart.

III. Painter/God

After the explosion in his beloved Delft,

and after the invasions—

damn the French army and the

German bishops!—

after the courts, theaters, and shops close

and the economy collapses,

after moving in with his mother-in-law

because he cannot provide adequately,

after the births of Maertge, Elisabeth, Cornelia, and all the rest,

including baby Ignatius—

four of them taken early by the Lord—

there is only the front room on the second floor

where he’s set up two easels

there is only vermilion with blue underlaid for

the folds of her dress, casting purple shadows

there is only lapis lazuli,

umber,

ochre,

lead-tin-yellow

green earth and

grisaille

(he will ask Pietr for more paint)

there is only the surface of every object

partaking of the color of the adjacent object

there is only Fostedina, girl of Fresia,

girl with the golden helmet of hair.

Draw. Dead-color. Paint. Glaze.

…red yellow blue over brown…

A girl reads a letter by an open window—

his mother-in-law’s window—

He poses her beneath the Cupid with staff,

a framed possession entirely his own,

and so is she, the girl, his own,

in a dress that matches the curtain.

He asks God to forgive his arrogance

for creating the world in his image,

for shutting out his children’s cries

and ignoring the barren cupboards.

In this room, he creates life,

bestows love’s hope upon the girl

and sets Cupid’s blessings o’er

her blushing countenance,

as the ever-changing undying

life-giving light,

his light,

lights his way and hers.

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