If I was a Premier League football player
I’d have a wonderful haircut. I’d let
the curls in my fringe express themselves,
allow clippers to run up my neck and around my ears.
I’d give a portion of my income
to a mental health charity, sure, while collecting
NFTs of my favourite wrestlers’ heads and buying
a small village in Somerset to turn into a life-sized
version of the Island of Sodor. I would walk about
the streets wearing no sunglasses, no hat, no hood.
I would be desperate for anyone to stare
and point and say, Wow, that’s the man who kicks
a ball as smooth as a nib moves across paper.
I’d probably stop trying to write poems
on account of visiting children’s hospitals
and modelling for a local crotchless pants inventor.

© Carl Burkitt 2023