On Looking at a Vermeer

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.