Henri Jules Jean Geoffroy, French
Back When Obstetricians Used To Charge By the Pound, 1903
Oil on canvas
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MASTERPIECE #2915
Info, or links that point to more info, about this artist can be found here, here, here (several works featuring children), here (can be read in full for free on Fridays), here, here, and here, perhaps in addition to what’s in his Wikipedia page (Google translated French Wikipedia page has more).
Archive of second here link if necessary.
/// Sick experiment seen at its start—
orphaned triplets will be raised apart.
Heartless Doc’s a researcher.
Is it “nature” or “nurture”
that makes people immoral or smart.
/// He’ll keep track of them as they mature.
One raised rich, one bourgeois, one raised poor.
They will still look alike,
but diverse milieux strike
at genetics in factors obscure.
/// Decades pass, they will meet just by chance,
their relationship seen at a glance.
In comparing their lives
they each wed redhead wives,
but they each prefer books to romance.
/// That scared baby should cut them some slack,
for The Weighing is not an attack.
All his kin, fisher-folk,
have a rule they invoke:
“If a catch is too small, throw it back.”
> or <
/// Belleville’s Triplets had always competed,
and the eldest remained undefeated.
To ensure that her son
was the heaviest one,
on her short skinny husband she cheated.
> or <
/// “’Are they yours?’ You know where they came from.
You seduced us and made us succumb.
Our sons can’t grow mustaches,
but what seem to be rashes
match the birthmark you’ve got on your bum!”
/// The covenant of circumcision
has long been a source of derision.
But with supervision
this tiny incision
is safe… if it’s done with precision.
/// If the mohel is paying attention,
then the baby feels no apprehension.
Fed a few drops of wine,
soon the infant feels fine.
Those who wince are the squeamish grown menschen.
/// I have yet, in my long life, to hear
of a foreskin saved as souvenir.
The cells have appliance
to Medical Science;
helping burn victims’ scars disappear.
/// Though most may be disposed of with haste
as examples of medical waste,
if this tissue can aid
those in need, I’m afraid
some misgivings may well be misplaced.