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What delight I felt when

I saw on Facebook some years

after we’d last met that

you were a PETA campaigner

wore crisp white knickers and bare breasts

in Trafalgar Square

flanked by placards,

fake blood, animal masks

we had kissed by the sea

the sound of the waves

in the dark

in December

the chip shops

the revellers

my birthday drinks

you’d a piercing then

but not now

my friends left by car

along the seafront road

it snowed the day after

you wouldn’t phone in sick

we held hands and walked

through the slush

the morning traffic

had coffee

exquisitely aware of the looming end.