In Response to Rembrandt’s A Girl at a Window, by Jill Hawkins

A Girl at a Window, by Rembrandt (Netherlands) 1645

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In Response to Rembrandt’s A Girl at a Window

Red cord
easily found on light hair
tangles in my
auburn twists.

I do have value.
In my chains, if you may,
and I’m God’s child.

If out there, I’d
untie my tresses
and hold my hem
up in a spring.

All things of value
are put away.
Brought out on special nights.

Never in the day.
Sometimes, yes, in my mind,
in my grin.

Jill Hawkins

Jill Hawkins is a graduate of The Red Earth MFA program at Oklahoma City University. She was born and raised in Oklahoma. Jill has publications in: (JAMA) The Journal the American Medical Association, Blacktop Passages, Southwestern American Literature, Pink.Girl.Ink., Poeming Pigeon, Mizna, The Endeavor, Dragon Poet Review, Red Earth Review, Lowestoft Chronicle, The Whiskey of our Discontent: Gwendolyn Brooks as Conscience and Change Agent, Degenerates: Voices of Peace, The Penwood Review, PCC Inscape Magazine, Toe Good, Deaf Oklahoman, Montana Mouthful, Stream Ticket, a Veil: Journal of Darker Musings, and Metafore.