After the split I would glimpse him
out and about,
entering glitzy restaurants
on the arms of powerful men -
though I knew for sure
there'd be nothing of that
going on
if he had his way -
or on TV
telling the women out there
how, as a woman himself,
he knew how we felt.
His flirt's smile.
The one thing he never got right
was the voice.
A cling peach slithering out from its tin.
Carol Ann Duffy inserts another of her brief summarising lines. Tiresias clearly lacks depth of character and fellow feeling with other women. He is reduced the a shallow ‘flirt’s smile’ and to manipulating situations to his own benefit; exploiting the gender change which was imposed upon him.
From Mrs Tiresias