Appearance is everything – a poemI would like to be well spoken…

Appearance is everything – a poemI would like to be well spoken…

Appearance is everything – a poem

I would like to be well spoken but I am not.

I would like an accent that says I went to a rich school and was raised in a rich way.

But my recovered voice reveals industrial North London, like an opulent velvet curtain swept aside beneath a crystal chandelier, mirroring the council estate where I was born, with cement walls the colour of Russian mink.