After Edward Hirsch

In spite of everything,
my skin is attached to muscle
and I wear grey slippers at night.
There’s a replica wrestling belt on our wardrobe,
I carry 8-foot Christmas trees for half a mile
and up one flight of stairs. In spite of everything,
I get to smell chocolate in the morning (in bed)
and listen to incorrect lyrics. I get to dance
in my pants, play code words and eat Pringles
and promise to stop eating Pringles
and then eat Pringles. I get to stretch my legs,
unfurl my spine, forget to shave my neck.
The next time a doctor has to ask
In spite of everything,
why do you think you’re still here?
I will say what I always say.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

Shall we have a little chat about leaves?
Shall we talk about how they wave in the wind?
Shall we talk about how crispy they get?
Shall we try and tackle their colour change?
Shall we discuss how, more often than not,
when you kick your way through piles of them
your pristine white trainers get covered in dog egg?
Do you think it looks like they have veins?
Do you think they like their trees?
Shall we have a little chat about leaves?
Shall we talk about how every time they die
they’re replaced but something
that looks a lot like they did
when the sun sat on them,
when young eyes stared and said Wow
for the first time through a window.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

A ladybird is walking
across my dark green woolly hat
and my hair is a vine plant
running down my window sill shoulders
and my sprouting chest is an unwelcome weed
and my nostrils are puddles
and I have a damp soil beard
swallowing all sorts of dead
and my skin is thin scum over a garden pond
and I can hear the croaks of jolly frogs
jumping and jumping and jumping
across lily pad freckles.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

His ribs were sagging coat hangers.
His eyebrows were draft excluders.
His jaw was a side view of an armchair.
His novelty tie was a toddler’s finger painting
pinned to the fridge of his work shirt.
His skin was hallway carpet.
His fingers were the separate compartments
of a cutlery drawer.
His eyes were bin night.
I can still hear his right shoe
tapping you are alive
in Morse code against the left.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

The greasy smear on my pillowcase
looks like all the creepy tears I’ve ever sleep-cried,
a build up of sweat from a nighttime
workout of worrying and worrying,
a puddle of blood from being shot
in the head by a nightmare,
a melting of too many thoughts from
snoring ears, but it’s none of that.
I’m just a bit gross, at the end of the day.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

After Rob Auton

When I saw the kid with no helmet
taking a selfie while cycling no-handed
down a street with no features
and Pringles were the only crisps
without a Sainsbury’s red-label price drop
and the gravel in the front garden
had more plum-coloured leaves
than the plum-coloured tree
and the voice I could hear through your phone
in the other room delivered news
while the hash browns
stuck to the baking tray in my hand
that was covered in the oven glove
with a dozen pin-sized holes,
I knew the world outside had ended.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

You are the colour
of Arsenal Football Club’s canon.
Your teeth are the waste that falls
to the ground when a bullet takes a life.
The night I got lost
in a phone box the sky was filled
with a million stars shaped like fingertips
pressing the number 9.
When bubbles in cheap lager
dance like nameless nightclub bodies
I drink toffee vodka
to remember if you had freckles.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

After U.A. Fanthorpe

There is a kind of love called breakfast,
which reminds you
there is at least one reason to wake up;
which thinks picking a style of eggs to cook
is harder than choosing a favourite child;
which lays out the dozen condiments
across the coffee table
so you can take your time;
which leaves nothing to waste;
which mixes sweet and savoury;
which adapts; which tries;
which is just as delicious
at the end of the day
as after a difficult morning.

© Carl Burkitt 2020