You stole a piece of me.
Absorbed in my own art
as you worked yours,
I never felt your skilful fingers
pick the pocket of my soul.

Nor did I feel the loss
at first, but when I saw her,
motionless and yet alive, within
the single moment you carved out for her,
I knew that you had plucked
some morsel of myself to let her live.

You did not ask,
nor, had you done so,
would I have given what you took.
But time brings forgiveness.
My lace has rotted. These hands,
this hair, this flesh – and yours – are dust.
The piece of me you stole lives on.


inspired by Vermeer’s painting of the same name
first published in The Fig Tree