It's Still Life

Pygmalion

it is a quiet,
deliberate working:

the moment you open your mouth,
someone begins deciding
what you are worth.

Londoner.
east end.
cockney.
midlands.
northern.

foreigner.

a life reduced
to the shape of a vowel,
as though birthplace
were evidence,
as though the mouth
could confess a class
before the heart
has said a word.

it is a flimsy mechanism,
yet it survives.

audible,
inherited,
almost polite.

and so easily
we mistake an accent
for substance,
a sound for character,
difference for deficiency.

it is both binding
and blinding.

binding the speaker
to what others expect,
blinding the listener
to everything
the voice might have carried.

too easily we forget
the anger written within
Pygmalion,

that a person may change
the sound of her vowels
and still remain
entirely herself.

Some images created with Midjourney; all writing is my own original work.©Misky 2006-2026.