Button Ups
for my Father

There’s a pile of clothes waiting,
unspoken offerings folded inside.
My father and I while away the time
unspoken companionship takes flight.

He picks his moment,
I pick up each garment.
Oversized vintage menswear, classics.
I pick up his attention to detail.

I love each utilitarian piece
good material, room to move,
without the breath of femininity
perfuming my neck. Protection –
             the achilles heel of the eldest anything.

“I know you – ah –
             like to wear these – it ah              – suits you”

the fabric drapes just past midthigh,
long enough I find people forget
they call me Woman in their mind.

long enough my father can imagine
I am still a child and not
something he no longer understands.

About the author

Nikita Kostaschuk, she/they, writes in Meanjin/Magdanjin, on unceded Yuggera & Turrbal country. A facilitator of spoken spaces, Nikita is the founder of SpeakEasy Poetry, a community open mic. They are published in Blue Bottle Journal, Strange Daze Lit Mag and Jacaranda Journal, with a forthcoming collection through Calanthe Press.