Bart Wilcox
Objects in the Vermeer Are
Closer Than They Appear
2024, Oil on canvas, 24″ x 24″

Verisimilitude sounds to me like a color,
a shade of Vermeer when a shaft of light
saturates a tapestry. I don’t care that he
used a contraption to paint. Art is
a contraption. I just wonder at his marriage
to that room that window, how it must have
been burned onto the retina. Retina sounds
to me like a veneer, an encrustation
or the name of a maid, standing in the light,
pouring water into a bowl. In love with the room
or is he imprisoned? My impersonation
with an imperfect mirror, a fractured retina,
in love with the room, with the girl, but
much more oyster than pearl.