THE FAMILY PORTRAIT

They lined up in the driveway

when the photographer came,

a posed shot for the mantelpiece.

Gather all the family, he said,

and we’ll do a group rate.

And so they did.

He set his camera up,

while the farmer and his lovely wife

rounded up the family.

Four legs and two,

fur and hide and hair,

feathers and skin, all the same to them.

The pitter-patter

of tiny feet never came,

love, poured instead

into bottle feeding calves,

and dogs, who slept

on the end of the bed.

Family is never just one thing.

The camera clicked,

the light flashed,

and the shot was set in stone.

A family portrait for a frame,

a moment caught in time.

©Roisin Duffy

TITLE: THE FAMILY PORTRAIT

ORIGINAL SOLD

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