Self Portrait in a Contextless Mirror

At the Dressing-Table. Self-Portrait (1909) — Zinaida Serebriakova

Don’t count me out

Just because I’m down

Does a tree’s leaves not

Explode like dynamite

In the renewing showers of Spring?

Out of the ashes,

I will rise.

I’ll exit my tomb in

A bathrobe

And I’ll bark forth a yawn.

Sound my barbaric yawp.

Yes, I’ve been down so long

It looks like up to me.

A change of perspective,

the hardest thing in life is change.

I’ll lock myself in a loop

Of self-flagellation

So long as it allows me

To dodge my own reflection.

My visage reflected and refracted

Through glass

Casts a Medusa-like curse.

Stare too long and—well,

you know.