Calendar poem for 10 January by the Dutch writer Gerrit Krol

On the usefulness of an image

I’m thinking in this connection of

Regine Olsen,

engaged to Søren Kierkegaard,

the Danish philosopher, who,

as he himself writes about her,

lying on her sofa

her legs apart,

showed him the soft, violet garden

of her vagina

without his wishing to lie with her:

the first functional

photographic illustration

for

Regine was not there,

he simply imagined the scene

and he broke off the engagement because he

without her, he thought,

could better consider her.

To see the original poem go to here