Email subject lines land
like fists in the middle of the day
making you wish you knew
what boxers mean by duck and move
or the names of clouds,
or tried enough crisp flavours,
swam naked from time to time,
licked more stamps instead of listening
to stories about spider eggs on envelopes,
drank fizzy drinks, dealt with trapped wind,
wore shorts around the house,
stayed in touch before batteries died.

© Carl Burkitt 2022

The online fire safety training voice wants me
to stay alive. He believes the closest door will
let me keep eating Pink Lady apples,
dip the tips of my boots in puddles,
watch strangers talk to each other,
stand down-wind from bakeries,
give names to ducks, yawn
as far as the muscles in my mouth let me,
scrunch clouds up like tissues,
press the windows of skyscrapers
with my finger tips and hear them pop,
nod at squirrels, draft letters to you,
sit on benches with nothing to do
or think about and nowhere to be
other than inside skin that is sometimes fire
I’ve never understood how to stop.

© Carl Burkitt 2022

His hair sits left to right across his skull
as neatly as the lines on his forehead,
the last night iron-creases on his shirt.
His cheeks sit soft like an peeled banana.
It’s fun watching his eyes bury themselves
into every word that’s being said to him
from the other side of his train table.
There is no coffee in front of him,
there is no tea in front of him,
he is awake because it is the morning.
Look at his fingers go, jumping from key to key
on his laptop. I can see words
like Sure! and Nice! and No problem!,
each one a colour on his rainbow socks.

© Carl Burkitt 2022

The bloke from a comedy show is going
undercover selling heroin in a drama
and his beard is the day I first grew mine.
I haven’t seen my cheek skin
since that day I thought I could fly.
The bloke from a comedy show just said
I’ve been on the run before,
there’s no peace in it
and words have never fit a mouth less.

© Carl Burkitt 2022

I like walking into cafés and wiping my feet
on welcome mats with the café’s name printed
on them and drinking from cups
with the café’s name printed on them
and wiping chocolate biscuit crumbs
from my beard with napkins
with the café’s name printed on them
and sitting on chairs with the café’s name
printed on them and thanking people
with the café’s name printed on them
because it feels like love and eating
a stick of rock with the face you feel safe
with stained through the middle.

© Carl Burkitt 2022

It is nighttime,
there is a row of red lights
shimmering like I’m squinting.
They sit below clouds
the black sky won’t let me see.
They sit on top of buildings
I have not been inside.
They sit in the middle of a city
I stand outside of in the day.
It is nighttime,
there is a row of red lights
and countless other things
I don’t have time to talk about.

© Carl Burkitt 2022

The cheesy chips sit
under thick gravy.
Nothing of consequence is
on the TV. A plastic Noah is
in my pocket, I can feel
his fake straw hat. I bet
he doesn’t worry
when his animals are sleeping.
Not everyone knows
when the floods are coming.

© Carl Burkitt 2022

I took a trip to the sock drawer
and let a few old friends talk
about drama I can’t even remember.
A dour grey number looked at me
and did its best to smile with no teeth.
It had fingerprints of hikes and puddles
and midnight train stations
and unfamiliar streets with names
that vaguely ring a bell
stained to its thin spine. I didn’t say anything,
because a fresh pack of unopened
running socks wouldn’t stop
calling me names.

© Carl Burkitt 2022

An oatmeal cookie-furred cat
runs into the local shoe shop.
Poor thing, says a stranger
with a smile as deep as a bath tub.
They have to pay twice as much as us.
The high street has a softness to it today.
Bakeries are giving away the smell of bread
for free, speed bumps are saying Thank you,
cafes are asking people how their nights went.
You’re in my arms eating raisins
oblivious to the fact you were a witness
to the greatest joke of all time.

© Carl Burkitt 2022