You feel adequate to the demands of this position?

What qualities do you feel you

Personally have to offer?

                                                                 Ah

Let us consider your application form.

Your qualifications, though impressive, are

Not, we must admit, precisely what

We had in mind. Would you care

To defend their relevance?

                                                                 Indeed

Now your age. Perhaps you feel able

To make your own comment about that,

Too? We are conscious ourselves

Of the need for a candidate with precisely

The right degree of immaturity.

                                                                 So glad we agree

And now a delicate matter: your looks.

You do appreciate this work involves

Contact with the actual public? Might they,

Perhaps, find your appearance

Disturbing?

                                                                 Quite so

And your accent. That is the way

You have always spoken, is it? What

Of your education? Were

You educated? We mean, of course,

Where were you educated?

And how

Much of a handicap is that to you,

Would you say?

                                         Married, children,

We see. The usual dubious

Desire to perpetuate what had better

Not have happened at all. We do not

Ask what domestic disasters shimmer

Behind that vaguely unsuitable address.

And you were born –?

                                                                 Yes. Pity.

So glad we agree.

U.A. FANTHORPE