The Tesco women are secretly vaping
behind the till and gossiping about their mate
Sandra. The smell of strawberries interferes with
chat about Phillip Schofield and how Norway
is not Britain. I’m drunk on a Monday because
I am Sandra and I’ve been texting a newly sober
friend who recommends eating too much food
by a beach in Portugal or Spain or Crete, I’m too tipsy
to remember which. I agree with her that I should
nip it in the bud because the tarmac beneath
me is far too soft. I thought the red man was
green 20 minutes ago and everyone who has died
in the last 36 years is still dead. They are not ghosts.
They are not looking down or up. The Doritos
they enjoyed or their cutlery I now eat with or the
Shirley Bassey records they hid don’t really exist. They
live in strawberry vape and opinions of Alison Hammond.

© Carl Burkitt 2023