Helene Schjerbeck

Helsinki 1862-1946

The Finnish winter this season softens.

Perhaps the snows blow from Gallipoli.

I paint my mouth an apple blackening,

A roaring lion beside lipsticked lakes.

Here we tempted boy soldiers to desert.

In sedate harems we geld with needles.

I become my lonely mother, looking

For my father discovering oilfields.

Should we disbelieve in painted icons?

Go, play a game of blind man's bluff,

Or drain all the fjords of Finland dry.

Lay waste the whole of Asia Minor.

Guess who gets tangled in my ghost's embrace?

The Finnish winter this season softens.

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Helene Schjerbeck, Self-Portrait. Helene died in isolation in 1946