I decided to stop therapy
because I was perfect.
And how might your perfection
appear to others?
Classic my therapist,
missing the point completely.
In Wordsworth’s house
a portrait of his concubine beside
a printout of his famous poem
in which the only decent lines that flash
upon the inward eye / which is the bliss
of solitude were written by his sister.
Joe Dunthorne’s novels include Submarine and The Adulterants. His most recent collection of poems is O Positive (Faber & Faber).
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This article appears in the 02 May 2019 issue of the New Statesman, A very British scandal