Twenty-five, dressing in her new London flat;
She goes for the red.

Goneril always made it killer-sharp,
Swallowed herself in it like she was a woman who never bled.

They weren't close, she wasn't close to women.

Men were better:

Daddy with his expensive spread of self.
It took up all the space on the surfaces, wove
Around knickknacks,

Colonised the mantelpiece. A big man who liked his daughters
Small, petite. Cordelia the best, who could fit
On his shoulders, drape hollow bones into his open palm,

But she wasn't birdlike - she was too heavy, too clumsy,
Her nails imperfect and smudged against the promise dark night.