Mrs. Dalloway's pocket poem

The Origin of the World

About suffering they were never wrong. - W.H. Auden

They knew something about pleasure, too,
those painters; they understood
how it may be compounded
of the simplest elements, the merest trace
of water or light.

Courbet's L'Origine du monde, for instance.
The bedclothes are thrust aside
and a woman's sumptuous thighs
sprawl open the canvas toward you
as  you approach.

Courbet studies his nude with the acuity
of a lover. And lets you see
in the crest of reddish fur
at the body's threshold
a hint of wet

like the dab of white in the iris
that lights the eye.

- Chana Bloch