Twenty one giant frogs
are dotted around the town,
their thick plastic skin painted
in bright colours. One looks like Spider-Man.
They live to bring the community together
after a difficult 19 months.
The Frog Wardens are wearing lily pad green
t-shirts above pond blue jeans.
Please don’t sit or stand or climb on the frogs.
They are patrolling the area
to ensure children are enjoying the trail
designed for them to count them all
and be exposed to art and imagination
to an appropriate degree.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

Aldo Zilli is teaching us
how to make pasta in the sunshine.
It’s his mum’s recipe. He talks
of Italy with tomato cheeks.
The red mills of Stockport
are surrounding us; every brick
as strong as the accents around me.
A street below us pretends to be Birmingham
for the filming of Peaky Blinders.
My son is wearing a sky blue football top:
one of four shirts he has
representing four different towns.
Aldo says he was joking when he said
he didn’t want to come here.
I feel a prickle in my chest like an old man
in a pub having his nose put out of joint
and my feet sink into the foundations
just a little bit more.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

in the room
next to the one I’m in.
It moves to the sound
of a pack of carrot puffs
opening.
It is the size of a fist
of a creature
with small fists.
It doesn’t know
what it is, but it knows
to keep going.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

There are sunflowers
on the table in our flat,
sitting bright yellow and open
staring at me every time
I walk into the living room.
They don’t know who I am.
They don’t know what they are.
They are just sitting.
They are open.
They are yellow.
They are open.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

yelling at the cinematographer
in my mind who won’t stop
standing in my way.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

It was a cup of tea:
steam in all the right places,
milk making it biscuit brown,
cup with a badger on the side
and a handle ideal for fingers.
The was no reason
for it to feel as heavy as the room
we were in,
but my wrist buckled
like a soggy Rich Tea
until my jaw did the same.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

I’m not Harry Kane, no.
My back hurts. There’s a knot
in my hip tied up from all sorts.
I’d like to see Harry Kane
in this wrestling T-shirt and slippers though
lifting this sofa over a brick wall
wondering if this is what it takes
to make friends in your 30s.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

She got him back.
His pram was sitting neatly
in front of the display of chops.
Not to worry, the butcher said.
We knew you’d return.
And she did, her heart punching her chest,
sweat beads gathering like customer eyes
looking at livers and kidneys,
her calf muscles tender and panicked.
I feel my skin most days
looking for things I should be doing,
forgetting the things I believe,
wondering when it will fall off
my bones and drag my memory
to the floor.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

Your hair is slicked back
and your cheeks could sell
a second hand car with ease.
People seem to smile
when your face walks
on to a drizzly forecourt.
Your singing voice is a punch
to the lungs.
I think about Janine
pushing you
off the edge of a cliff
and the shape of your laugh
disappearing.

© Carl Burkitt 2021