Gustave Courbet paints the Virgin
by and published in Edition Eleven of Pomegranate
After ‘L’Origine du monde’ (1866).
You started with something resembling that divine
doorway through which we come on day one,
suggesting origination. How lips
part to tell the secret of their life:
the Madonna’s whoring. But then what
of the milk that grew the Child, and of
the Messiah’s nourishing, and anatomy?
How is the bust then to be shown,
in paint? Will you choose a politic angle
frankening the firmness of teenage breasts
even after giving birth? Will there be
an excess of fluid at their mouth,
where His mouth left them, contented? Perhaps
you will show them only in shadow, falling
down on His face, still full. Still fat.
Certainly you will show the truth
of the matter, the staining of the mother
or the maiden’s ripeness. Then be prepared
to be driven out of the city, followed
in the wake of your own perversion
to the arms and chests of whoever you meet.
Alex Gabriel
Alex Gabriel is eighteen years old, though not getting much younger. He lives in Oxford where he pretends to study English and German.