I woke up
to Swindon Town Football Club
signing a 21-year-old goalkeeper on loan.
The tarmac on my morning run was choking
on the fallen green eyelashes
of every Christmas tree I’ve ever owned.
The goalkeeper is called Mark.
At the T-junction
by the closed down butchers
a funeral hearse slowed to a stop
and let me run past
in guilty trainers.
The photo of Mark in his goalkeeper kit
suggests he has big, but gentle hands.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

When I sit on my sofa
I imagine
I am the host of a breakfast news show
and I sweat through my suit
and cry at the news
and thank the God I don’t know exists
for giving me cue cards
and a sense of what to say.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

Without even thinking
he reached out his TV tray hands
and gave me everything:
a gravel driveway forehead,
a prawn cocktail tongue,
the tough tissue clump
on my right ear but not my left,
creaky floorboard feet,
a hairline in the shape of
an M for My hair is receding,
a pigeon chest, draft excluder arms,
skin too thin for the sun
but thicker than I sometimes remember.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

I would swoon
over professional boxers
who could crack a jaw
with a single punch
until I saw the ones
who would take a battering
and kept asking for more
until I saw the ones
who could dodge
whatever came near them
until I saw the ones
who knew when the ring
was getting a bit too much
and wrapped their hands
around their favourite hot drink
while they looked at their scars
with compassion.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

Every night is bin night –
a chance to leave
bits of you in the front garden
for foxes to scream at the bones
and take what they need
until your skull sits empty,
ready to be overstuffed again.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

Every August
I drink to commemorate
the death of Phil Mitchell.
I mean, it may as well have been him,
it was just as sudden
as the EastEnders’ outro drums.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

I wonder how big you’ll get.
I wonder if you’ll sprout hairs.
I wonder if your hairs will be brown
or blonde or orange or grey or tired.
I wonder if you’ll always quiver in the cold.
I wonder if you’ll spend an afternoon
Googling which of your childhood
sitcom stars appeared in porn.
I wonder if you’ll wander about unsure
if you can be bothered
to scrub all the blemishes off you.
I wonder if you’ll smile at men
in charcoal suits on New Year’s Day in Morrisons
who, instead of a using a basket,
are dragging a loaf of white bread
through the aisles on an adult scooter.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

A man is on the phone
saying I love you
in that way people do
when they mean it.
Over his mouth
is a face mask
decorated with the snarling teeth
of a furious dog
desperate to bite
my staring eyes out.

© Carl Burkitt 2020