This is no home for old men,
old patriarchs, old playboys
He presses the button, waits maybe a minute,
no-one appears
Idle bitches! he rails
There’s no need to use abusive language
about the people looking after you, I tell him,
even if you do need the bathroom
Kay comes in, cropped black hair, green scrubs,
smiles at him, says How can I help?
My father says nothing
In the dayroom, enjoying each other’s
company, playing cards, arranging
flowers, watching TV, are women
his own age
He never talks to them
But when the gardener’s outside, bending over
the roses or riding
the mower, a breeze in her tawny curls,
he beams his stroke-wrenched grin at her
She waves to him
It’s not her job
to wipe his bum
It’s not mine either, thank something
But who am I to him now?
His dead wife, whose name he sometimes calls me?
His mother? His little girl?
No, just his strange tall ‘daughter’
who talks like a boy and for some reason insists
on trousers and too-short hair
I’ll never come out to him, never say, I’m not
a ‘tomboy’—I’m trans, pangender, queer
My friends don’t call me the name you use
His brain wouldn’t process those words
I could tell him he’s still handsome
for his age
and the ‘girls’ in the dayroom
might like to chat with him
but I suspect they’re actually glad
they’ve got away from old men
First published in Turbine | Kapohau 2025 (December)
