Brothers – A Poem

Susan C. Waters was not just a portrait artist, who also painted animals and still lifes, but a woman who supported herself and her husband with her paintings, and an animal activist and suffragette. More on the artist, and her photograph here. And more of her paintings here.

Brothers was painted early in Mrs Waters’ career when she was specialising in children’s portraits. She and her husband were also at the time travelling through northern Pennsylvania and Southern New York.

More of my ekphrastic poetry here. This is a catalogue poem – from the perspective of which brother, do you think?

Brothers

1. In witness thereof, I give and bequeath to my brother my cap which he has stolen many times and tossed into the hedgerow so that it may not fit him the way it does not fit me
2. I give and bequeath to my brother my copy of Little Harry and the Apples though he teases he is naughty Jack Wildfire stealing Mr Truman’s apples while I am good Little Harry running to Mother
3. I give and bequeath to my brother my half of Blackie, who always loved me best anyway
4. I give and bequeath to my brother my half of the cherry and apple orchards Father says will one day be ours, and our children’s, and their children’s
5. I give and bequeath to my brother and our children and their children this painting so that they may hang it in their homes and whenever they bite into an apple or a cherry, they may know its provenance
6. I give and bequeath to my brother this collar for it confoundingly itches

©elsp 2026