I’ve got a metal screw between my teeth
and I’m drilling another into a bit of wood,
thinking about the men who built me.
My heart is the first microwave to arrive
in a Swindon pub where Burt took Janet
to watch a shepherd’s pie cook for 40 minutes.
The hacksaw in my father-in-law’s shed
has the teeth of the bread knife used
to tell me to hand my teenage bike over.
The tightness in my chest
and patient smile in my mouth
is Dad’s sledgehammer passed to me
when we were allowed to demolish
a garden wall.

Carl Burkitt 2024