Model of models;
Virgin smile over
The ageless babe

My portrait is in the world’s
galleries:
Motherhood without

A husband; chastity
My complexion. Cradle
of flesh for one

not born of the flesh.
Alas, you painters
of a half-truth, the

Poets excel you.
They looked in under
my lids and saw

as through a stained glass
window the hill
the infant must climb

the crookedness of
the kiss he appended
to his loving epistle

R S Thomas