It felt more like a commission than love.
She could have said,
paint me getting married,
put yourself in there for effect.
So he stood quietly beside her.
Even handed the brush to another.

Once it was framed,
it felt like everything.
Stick it on a wall and it held.
People stared at it and grinned.
They even looked at it,
and their mouths put on some sort of show,
held the expression
like they sometimes held each other.

After twenty five, thirty, forty years,
it won some kind of award or other,
a ribbon, a cup, an incentive
to go onto the next anniversary.
It faded a little with time,
paint flaked, casing rotted,
but there was no getting away from it...
it was always in itself,
it was always occupied.