You are the colour
of Arsenal Football Club’s canon.
Your teeth are the waste that falls
to the ground when a bullet takes a life.
The night I got lost
in a phone box the sky was filled
with a million stars shaped like fingertips
pressing the number 9.
When bubbles in cheap lager
dance like nameless nightclub bodies
I drink toffee vodka
to remember if you had freckles.

© Carl Burkitt 2020