Portraits

Sitting was an irritant, loathed:
my fringe tickled my wrist,
my back itched, my shin did too.

Minutes were six weeks long, waiting
for you to finish the eyebrows
holding your pencil arm out,

straight across my face,
one eye closed,
then measuring the longitude of nose,

the ratio of my forlorn cheek.
I am as miserable at five as I am at seven
in the paintings of my childhood.

In one, I even have my back-turned,
shivering in a towel, not looking at you.
This you gave me as a Christmas present.

Sometimes I had to pose for my brothers,
sometimes they had to pose for me,
their eyes were mine, my hand theirs.

Which is why when people came to visit,
they struggled to tell who was who
and settled on a word instead, 'it's lovely’ they said.

Since we were never out of each others’ pockets
we are together in portraits, all five in one bath,
which you called Consider The Lilies and regretted selling.

Now it is more often just me in the pictures,
at my laptop or in a book, still unwilling
to sit for too long doing nothing.

This week we chose the pictures for your private view,
you brought across a watercolour of four yellow camellias,
one to each vase, in different stages of opening, and said:

‘it’s you lot', then pointed to the third one along
which I knew was me. I was the closed bud,
stamen about to peek through the Advocaat petticoats.