Photo: Michael Regan

I drove to Brighton: four degrees below.
The motorways were salty, grinding, slow
My windscreen wash was frozen. Would not come.
The murky shroud of winter pushed me on.

We met at Trevor’s Café. Half past three.
Two full breakfasts and then two cups of tea.
Like lovers, sliding eggs around our plates,
We slowly brought ourselves to share our fates.

We come at it full circle; in for the kill
In all my life I’d never seen him look so ill.
His news was bad. I knew that it would be.
Compounded by the consultant’s honesty.

I looked at him. His eyes bore into me.
A hollowed-out version sat in spectral symmetry.
His clothes and skin and faded hair let go.
The insubstantial trappings of this ghostly show.

The only moving things in the place
Were clouds of cappucino steam upon his face,
And his eyes; liquid eyes that, although blurred
Traced my talk of future hope in every word.

Talk of children not had, choices made,
Cities not seen, odd debts not paid,
Journeys not taken and books not read,
Went untold, and mostly by us both, unsaid.

Scarves and hats summoned, he scraped his chair,
And we were all too quickly back in the hard, cold air.
He’d not the energy for the uphill climb.
So we took the No 12 bus to save the time.

And later as I strapped in, and slammed the car door
I saw him up high at the window of the 7th floor.
Mortally still, except his eyes that followed me
Hungrily up the road I drove along, along the sea.