There’s a man in my knife and fork drawer.
He sits in my palm during dinner.
I need to run through rain in his skin again.
The skip in my record player is a tut
to me slagging off Shirley Bassey.
At night I like to imagine
an eccentric old Oxfam customer
settling down with a hot water bottle, her legs
dressed up in his God-awful
grey camouflage pyjama bottoms.
I wish his warm winter hat fit my head.
I keep fruit in his sausage casserole dish.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

I can’t remember the last time
I saw my feet in a mirror.
I often forget I have organs inside my body.
My room is full of dust but my skin looks the same.
I can barely keep up.
I used to have three sugars in my tea and
mince pies had the taste of the Grinch’s armpit.
My eyes are the same size as when I was born
but my ears and nose won’t stop growing.
I get headaches in my face.
The creaking of my left knee sounds like
the squeaky front door hinge
of Grandma’s old house.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

We were all shocked when your eyebrows fell off.
You weren’t. You could feel it coming
beyond your roots.
You felt it in the blurred line between
where the sky starts and the ground stops.
It was a thousand knots tying themselves tighter.
It was the rumble of a never ending
dishwasher coughing up smoke.
It was the slow lane of a motorway to the moon,
a phone call, neatly stacked and organised boxes.
Your pillows were strips of plumped universe,
your hairs a thousand fallen stars.

© Carl Burkitt 2020