Where am I?

You awake with a groan and cry out
Four-thirty, the light seems exhausted. I am tired.
It must have been like this before she died.
A sickly half-light, between night and day
My mum loving you, but ill
You head-strong, needy, self-absorbed.

These days, you are more like a plant than a man
Existing, ingesting food, turned to the light
Your crosswords and Telegraph are gone.
You are half-blind. The white stuff does not work.
Music does not reach you any more
Except to make you cry.

You are more distant than you have ever been
But closer. A configuration of needs, like a child.
Your needs are my needs. I respond.
You are my dad. But do I love you?
I have glimpsed your opaque world
As we watched old films and drank tea.

It is fragmentary ­– a scorched album
Leaves charred, tumbling in the wind.
You placed no value in your own narrative
Life did things to you. You did not complain.
But each hurt you turned inside.
You were a stoic. A solipsist.

In the night, you make sounds.
They are inhuman, like an animal trapped.
You do not know where you are. Or do you?
You do not know those who love you.
You are isolated. In your own world.
But then, you always have been.

Stories, companionship, the fellowship of friends
These were the things of your wife.
You did not need them.
Everything you could not see did not exist.
Even your own needs.
No wonder my mum loved bright colours.

She kept going. You barely noticed her.
You groan. Where am I?
In the house you forced us to live in, dad.
It is cheerful now. We have done our best.
You do not see the colours that we make.
The house is your tortoise shell.