Raspberry and fig jam should do it:
keep her sweetly frozen in time
like a roadside cafe built
at the foot of a mountain.
Chunks of fruit and melted sugar
will stick her to the shelf of
a renovated church
converted into a six bedroom house
as memorable as the title of the book
next to her name on a thin spine.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

A black and white kitten
is hopping around the pub car park
flicking leaves with its sock-like paws.
A man with floorboard cracked cheeks
is pointing at his battered fish
speaking Welsh to an English baby
who looks like a pirate commanding his high chair.
A cyclist is drinking Guinness through a straw.
A group of teenagers are refusing to get lost
in their imaginations and walk away
from the equestrian enthusiasts
to kick a deflated football against a sad fence.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

Puff Daddy is telling us he’ll be missin’ you
and our fingers smell of the greengages
we just picked from your Granny’s trees.
The seats are either leather or a material
I am too young to remember.
I am in the seat behind your Dad
and his brains are bulging through his skull
with stories from a job I’m scared of
and ancient wisdom like, The meaning of life
is a glass of red wine and a good book.
The first greengage we chewed up that ladder
tasted as sweet as the time
we scoffed a pomegranate with toothpicks
and dry fried cashews over the hob.
I have no idea
Faith Evans was married to Notorious B.I.G.
My ears aren’t quite ready to understand sad.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

The instructions list things like
on-off, musical dial, bright light,
sing-song switch, puppy button,
and the future is fingers clicking
and new walking boots and jackets
and discovering corners of morning fields
and pockets filled with mini plastic bags
and lessons and lessons and lessons.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

The teeth of a high-rise skyline
are sitting in front of cheekboned
hilltop background and behind
an eyes shut furniture shop foreground.
The sun is a red pressure circle
on an elbow that’s been resting on a knee
during an overly long sit down toilet stop.
The cars are feet looking for somewhere to go
on a road that is outstretched skin,
sometimes hot, sometimes cold,
sometimes desperate to be replaced.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

floating in the living room,
bouncing to laughter,
stronger than we
could have imagined.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

Written using sentences found by searching
for ‘blue’ in my WhatsApp search bar

I’m a blue ass fly,
desperate for blueberries,
captivated by the wide eyed blue thing.
They are wonderful blue cheese mushrooms.
Does anyone have a Bluetooth speaker?
Just put them behind the blue bin.
If they are blue, then worry.
Bluergh.
I am the blue one.
The blue is really great.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

They tread lightly,
look around corners
before walking through doors,
fiddle with their tails,
avoid eye contact,
never step under ladders,
sit with their backs against the wall
to see danger entering the room
and show the rough side of their shoes
only when they’re ready.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

We don’t follow the sign.
I try to think about the youngest potato
I’ve ever seen and have no idea.
I’ve never got my hands dirty.
I’ve never crouched down
and pulled a potato out of the ground
with gloves I imagine to be orange
and torn at the wrist
because they’re one size too small.
I used to know someone who owned an allotment.
He told me, Never be afraid of an old potato.
I would shudder at the filth under his fingernails
as he took a ready salted crisp to his lips.

© Carl Burkitt 2021