On Looking at a Vermeer

Paul Petrie

It mirrors me-as if it did not hold
that woman weighing pearls and weighed with child,
and I, this wintry beard, were domiciled
in that dusk-pregnant, summer's room of gold.

But images are mad. Reflections break
into this bronze retreat; and all my room
pursues me here-here in this golden gloom
two rooms contend and wrestle for my sake.

There is a cave, whose winding, backward coils
lead, if all maps are fables, to this place.
That labyrinth deciphered, this dark face
shall roll in those golden scales, a pearl in pearls.