Afterthought

^{translated from the Danish by Jennifer Russell and Sophia Hersi Smith}

When a woman writes
little devils swarm
her most productive years
as well as men whom she only manages
to love badly and from a distance –
at the heels of those who are,
with some difficulty,
still possible to fend off
the grocers, the butchers, the bakers,
the postmen, the milkman,
the playwrights,
the lewd telephone voices,
the exam-sitting children and the singing
housekeeper who requires
coffee and chit-chat
for one hour every morning.
All this in spite of
grants meant to secure
artists
peace and quiet
to work.

When a man writes
he finds himself a true
handmaiden of art
who keeps everything and everyone
at bay when he is struck by
holy inspiration.
THE WORK is worth
all the effort
though he too loves
badly and from a distance.
On the first page
he immortalizes his
handmaiden with the words:
‘Without the tireless help and care
of my beloved wife
this book would never
have seen the light of day.’

The opposite would be
ludicrous and unthinkable.
Besides getting entangled
in Women’s Lib
I see only one
possible solution for
hard-working women artists:
they must be sterilized
at the age of fourteen
and subsequently placed
in soundproof cells
at one of those nursing homes
where they don’t
kick the elderly
in the shins.

For some years a daily dose
of sodium carbonate will be
necessary to keep
the libido in check.

This solution has only one flaw:
even a childless woman’s
never-touched breast
can fill with milk –