the good mother does not say ‘my child do you want?’
we are warmer before & after
my hair thick with worry
a sidelong waterview shush
gestures exist shift I'm making so much
noise you can't look me in the eye behavior is
communication it gets in everything
two people seated two people cooking two people
reading two people interior two people
sound with no object see listen
see also Jan Steen's Mother & Child in which
the distinction between hausfrau
& virgin disappears
virgin & baby-led weaning
that apple looks like it's had a fall from a table
a bruise a dent open wide
when someone offers you pap or else
later you will receive nothing netherlandish
virgin with spoon
there are many variations
extant intended
for private devotion with milk soup
*Gerard David, Virgin & Child with the Milk Soup [four versions], c. 1510-20
the good mother does not say ‘my child do you want?’
the nursing child is a passive rückenfigur
by contrast & view into another room or
windowscape in which her gesture is unintelligible
in which sometimes a pacifier is just a pacifier
figures take up or define space sometimes a dog
our lady of the mush
virgin & child with rosary as chewelry
& wooden spoon & wooden spoon & cherry branch
(he is about to eat a leaf holy face
cut from a book
long ago) book open domestic hours
he married a miniaturist his wife was a miniaturist
rest on the flight into egret [sic] [stet] rest rest
a market-tested secular representation indeed a bestseller
connect-the-dots & there was never an original
*Gerard David, Virgin & Child with the Milk Soup [four versions], c. 1510-20
the good mother does not say ‘my child do you want?’
while I was distracted his shift slipped
off & nothing else changed & no one noticed
without the use of X-radiograph his shift
dress disappears & we can reasonably assume
this was not the first in an intended series
milk soup thick with worry I add too much
milk goodnight mush
I like how her hands never change some
things women do with them his legs
kick squirm the same way a pattern
followed hold this spoon while
I put this other spoon in your mouth distract
you with spoons with a branch of cherries with singing
the lonely goatherd subsequent copies with fewer
flowers & a basket holding correspondence before
& after genres exist shift a book tells me
cherries bread & knife are domestic symbols of the good life
(none where none)
two interior people choose a moment & mark it
*Gerard David, Virgin & Child with the Milk Soup [four versions], c. 1510-20
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