De Melkmeid by Johannes Vermeer, by Rachel Rear

Rachel Rear is a teacher, writer, actor, and sometime aerialist living in Brooklyn, New York. Her work has been published in the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, Off The Coast Poetry Journal, and Forage Poetry Journal. She is working on her first book. Follow her on Twitter
@RaeRear.

Poet on the Poem:
Vermeer’s De Melkmeid was on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2009, in its first US appearance since the 1939 World’s Fair. Painted circa 1657-1658, it is a pivotal work completed in what is considered the middle of Vermeer’s career.