The sound of a 17-year-old struggling
to navigate a roll cage of cheese and squeeze
through ASDA aisles stuffed with New Year’s Eve
shoppers is enough to send me back in time.
I stacked ham, sausages, turkeys on shelves
like dead baubles on a butcher’s Christmas tree.
I wasn’t old enough to drink but my breath stank
of Dooley’s most Sunday mornings, my lips dripped
with in-jokes made with other teenagers
dressed in a blue and orange uniform
who didn’t care, but we did
in our bones, enjoy understanding the importance
of stock rotation, the responsibility of holding
a reduction gun, the chance to use heavy machinery,
seeing teachers in their weekend clothes,
being respected by the parents of friends,
being a part of a gang that fed the town.

Carl Burkitt 2023