Late night BBC Four, I stumbled across you.
It must have been what, twenty years?
Since the two of us were intimate
Bedroom door closed, blocking out
The sound of mum calling me for tea.

I didn’t recognise you at first.
Trademark quiff long since swept
From the stylist’s floor.
Piercings abandoned, lip uncurled.
You could have been presenting
Countdown or Gardeners’ World.

You were talking about those heady days
When you could almost smell revolution in the air,
Unemployment levels rising,
Miners striking and being struck,
And how you stuck it up Thatcher,
Back in the days when the kids
Really did give a fuck.

Not like now, you say, and you shake your head
In crushing disappointment at modern-day ennui,
And settle back into your armchair.
On the bookshelves behind you,
I notice a well-thumbed edition
Of Hypnotic Gastric Band
By Paul McKenna.