Pearl Earring, by Charles H. Halsted

Girl with a Pearl Earring, by Johannes Vermeer (Netherlands) 1665

Pearl Earring 
 
On an evening stroll along Amsterdam’s canals, he 
finds himself in de Wallen, the center of the city’s 
prostitution, well known for many centuries before. 
 
He finds her behind a window outlined in red. She 
is about twenty with a demeanor of expectation, an
attractive girl with piercing looks for sizing up the
 
potential wealth of men passing by. She always uses 
the time-worn rule: the better dressed the wandering 
man, the more he will be willing to pay.  
 
On entering an inviting unlocked door, he finds
himself in an oft-used bed chamber, a sheet-
covered bed in a far corner, wash basin with toilet
 
at another. The approaching young woman asks how
many guilders he will be willing to pay. He responds 
up to five, a lot in those days. A deal has been made. 
 
As she retires behind a curtain to remove her clothing, 
he states that he is not lusting for sexual adventure. He
tells her that he is an artist, a skilled portrait painter. 
 
Reaching into the case that he carries, he removes a small
jacket trimmed with gold braid, a blue headband, a white
turban with scarf to hang from the back of her head, red 
ointment for her lips, and last of all, a pearl earring to grace
her left ear. He asks her to turn her head to the left and then
to affect an inviting gaze and faint smile. 

Charles H. Halsted

I am a retired academic physician. My poetry education consists of twelve online courses provided by Stanford Continuing Studies and various poetry workshops in California, Oregon, and New Mexico. Currently, I have published more than eighty poems in thirty three poetry journals, in one chapbook, Breaking Eighty, and in one full book, Extenuating Circumstances. A second full book, On Razor-Thin Tires, is in press for publication in December. Potentially of interest,  I am the grandson of Charles Hopkinson, who was a noted landscape artist and portrait painter of the last century.