Helen Losse

Captured Moment
 
           —based on “The Milkmaid” by Jan Vermeer
 
The milkmaid stands at her station
 
           in this plain room,
                        beside milk and bread,
 
the towel on her head
           a practical white,
                        her thoughts—perhaps,
 
           not so pure. Her bodice is yellow.
 
                        The towel on the table
is the same shade of purple
           as the milkmaid’s skirt,
 
                        perhaps like the wine
she guzzled last night.
 
           Baskets on the wall glisten
                        with golden highlights.
 
Are those highlights indicative?
 
           The milkmaid pours the milk
                        from an earthenware pitcher.
                                                 Hard round bread
lies in a basket on the floor.
 
 
 
 
Helen Losse is the author of two full length poetry books, Seriously Dangerous (Main Street Rag, 2011), Better With Friends(Rank Stranger Press, 2009) and two chapbooks. She has recent poetry publications in Main Street Rag, Iodine Poetry Review, Wild Goose Poetry Review, The Pedestal Magazine, ken*again, Referential, and Georgann Eubanks’ Literary Trails of the North Carolina Piedmont. She lives in Winston-Salem, NC and is the Poetry Editor for The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature. Her blog can be found at Windows Toward the World
 
 
 
 
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