Emily Vance Brown

by Simon Maddrell

born just six months later
in the same place,
on the same island.
even though i can’t act or sing or dance
—but apart from that, we shared

a common fear of cybermen
and we couldn’t hide
behind the same sofa
even though we had the same difference
in our way. before it’s a sin was sung

we tried to escape from shame—
i hid in a similar island home,
river-locked in the forest of dean.
even though i was fifteen years behind
your pink-palaced fun and follies,

we were the man most likely to
realise our ambitions with damn
yankees and a charity to help others.
even though we juggled so much—we cut
friends in half, and we were cut up

too after contracting HIV.
you a diamond in the fatal eighties,
even though twenty-five years later for me,
we played around those safe spaces
across from our sexsick island.

even though in the remembrance of the daleks
you faced them down, phantomed
the opera with ten weeks to live.
i could never have been you
because I used to wish I was dead.