will remind your skin it can stretch
and that people have backs of heads.
There are walls but it doesn’t matter
because your heartbeat is in your heels.
You don’t need to share blood to be brothers,
the rhythmic bounce of your necks will do
and the joint noticing of the man with arms
the size of legs up in the air. We joke about
missing the train from Liverpool but we are
fathers with sons who dance to the sound
of fingers on kitchen counters and the
scratch of knuckles on trying-their-best-beards.

© Carl Burkitt 2021