The Flayed Ox

Rembrandt

If his aim was to be a realist, to showus what muscle and bone and sinewlook like and how they attach to eachother, then the milkmaid looking on,

touching muscle and bone and sinewis meant to be us, staring at its cavernousopening, all of us, like milkmaids lookingat something recently alive, now hanging.

Or is the ox us—us staring at cavernousbarreled ribs, sinew, and marbled muscle;us recognizing something alive, now hanging,as us; us as it hanging from a barn’s joist,

half-barreled ribs, sinew, marbled muscle.Staring into its dark, cavernous interior, doesshe see us, us hanging from a barn’s joisttied with ropes by its nether hocks, splayed,

us staring into a darker, cavernous interior?We see her as us in another way, as the ox is,tied with thick ropes by its hocks and splayed:she posed, modeled for the artist in the flesh,

posed herself in another way, as the ox isposed, captured in a moment as it was, not is.The artist’s model posed for him in the flesh.That’s her, as she once was, staring at an ox

posed, its captured moment as it is, not was,her captured moment also as it is—and was.Rembrandt’s model posed; she once had flesh,muscle, bones and bowels and sexual organs—

that’s her, captured in a moment as she wasbefore it became another moment, then none.Nothing—muscle, bones, bowels, sexual organs.Nothing. It, her, in a moment became nothing,

but before it became nothing, it had momentsthat looked like each other and were attachedto each other like muscle, bone, and sinew are—inseparable and real; like ox and milkmaid, show.