Still Life

Though I am not a painter
this is to be a portrait
of my parents and my sister.

You don’t have a sister.
This is my mother speaking,
someone I did once have.

I picture my sister in the middle,
Dad shuffling along
to make her some space.

Try to look like you’re happy
I tell my parents, at least
pretend you’re not dead.

And you too, I say to my sister.
(I don’t know her name
and it seems rude now to ask.)

She nods vaguely and yawns
and checks the time on her phone,
like it matters when you’re not real.

Still they all gaze at me as though
I’m the one who doesn’t exist.
It’s all coming out wrong.

Primary colours, that’s what I told them
but look – Mum’s in fuchsia
and my sister’s dress is palest peach.

Have another go at the pink
my sister whispers
but no-one’s heard her speak before.

Dad glances first at her, then me
Can’t you make her louder?
I’m not sure I can.

She sounded loud enough to me
in my head. Anyway this is a picture,
it’s meant to be quiet.

My mother gets up to look
strutting over in her heels,
You never were very good at lies.

Mum, it’s a painting.
I know dear but just try,
her voice kinder than the one I knew.

She pulls off her shoes and sighs.
Since when did I wear these?
Why are you dressing us up to be different?

And her? she points to my sister.
Decked out like a dahlia.
Dad sighs and heads for the door.

I expected she’d be more like me,
I begin, but it’s clear
I haven’t thought this through.

Don’t look at me, my sister sneers at Mum,
none of this was my idea.
She turns on me. Are we even friends?

And it’s then that I take
the biggest brush I can find
and drown the bristles in the white.

I sweep it across the canvas like snow
coming in from the Arctic
on a northerly, sparing no one

and in the quiet I breathe
and the exhaled air unties
a chord, notes letting go.

That’s a nice image, Mum says,
the woman I’m like in too many ways,
these days only a voice

in my head. Now it really is just me
and an empty canvas.
It’s time to begin.

Juliet Humphreys is a former special needs teacher who lives in Uxbridge. Her poems have been placed and shortlisted in competitions and published in a range of magazines, in print and online including Orbis, The Rialto, The North and Ink Sweat and Tears.