Even in Rembrandt’s portraits,
they don’t look like a ruling class,
and their wives are no less pronounced, prizing money not blood, merit
rather than patronage, showcasing girth as though business

set a standard of living
they merely adhered to. Rembrandt
put them in chairs, money conversing with beauty, but they’re standing
(in the commercial sense) as exponents of the solvent,

if common, misconception,
that with their lumps, muffs, stomach folds,
pendant chins, unfinished outer layers, and the predilection
for airless, well-choreographed virtue one sees revealed