Two new poems by Joe Dunthorne

circa 1900: Exterior of the cottage in Westmorland where the English poet, William Wordsworth (1770 - 1850), once lived. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

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).