Vermeer’s Little Girl, by Adam Zagajewski
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Vermeer’s little girl, now famous,
watches me. A pearl watches me.
The lips of Vermeer’s little girl
are red, moist, and shinning.
Oh Vermeer’s little girl, oh pearl,
blue turban: you are all light
and I am made of shadow.
Light looks down on shadow
with forbearance, perhaps pity.
From “Mysticism For Beginners” by Adam Zagajewski, translated from the Polish by Clare Cavanagh (Farrar, Straus and Giroux: 70 pp., $18)
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