'P and G' by Peter Siggard Andersen

He got the background first.
Our Linslade-Leighton Buzzard;
distilling it pure, like an essential oil.
Then he connected it; in a montage of photos,
he fitted our scenery like a living room carpet.
He re-plumbed the river, he re-aged the trees, then he grabbed our house
and flipped it through a looking-glass.
It's not photo-realism he noted to a query.

Next came the objects, the totems, the people:
my sax, your fleece, the world at our feet,
the Sultan's Turban, and Tai Chi Gill.
We understood this was narrative,
it became important to tell stories
so we rattled like our sea shells, strung up to chime.
One evening with a power drill, Louise and Kir!
It was all compost for his composition.

He got the story behind us,
he placed our engagement bridge
in the suitable space he'd left between us.
He painted our hopes, he painted our romance,
our desires for children in a brightly coloured ball.

Then he slogged-on, alone, inching over the surface
creating distance, dimensions, an all-important likeness, and
a pervading smell of linseed oil.

Our features came last from hours of scrutiny:
you arrived, My Love, like June with a blooming of roses
(and an argument at a party about the width of your face),
while I came in stages, incomplete
like the weekly instalments of those magazines that never quite make a set.

I am unsure still whether its me up there. I realise now
that I don't know my own face, and,
like a coelacanth being winched-up from the bed of a dark ocean,
I have been changed by this, my moment of capture.

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