I yawned in your face
and you didn’t yawn back
in that contagious way
the rest of the population would,
so I spent the evening
thinking you were unique
or broken
or both
and I didn’t know
which one I preferred.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

I can’t swing a golf club
without thinking about how long my arms are.
I feel like cooked spaghetti caught in a hurricane.
I don’t own coats because my wrists
make me look like someone
who doesn’t know how to buy a coat.
When I go swimming I worry my floppy bones
will make people think I am drowning
and they will come to save me
and someone who is actually drowning will die.
So I don’t go swimming.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

Enjoy! said the delivery man,
handing me my portion of chips.
You too! I replied,
closing my door and melting
red into the flat’s welcome mat.
A part of my brain meant it though.
I hoped he got back on his moped
and smiled to the tip tap of rain
across his brightly coloured helmet
and didn’t explode a thousand lives
with a wrong turn.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

After Selima Hill

I want to be a seat in a cinema. Any cinema.
It doesn’t need to be an independent cinema
showing films I pretend to understand. It can be
a cinema people overpaid to be in to hear stories
they will immediately forget. I want to be a seat
in a cinema and feel greasy fingers down my arms.
I want consensual blowjobs to happen on me.
I want chewing gum stuck to my back.
I want a stoic dad to sit on me and laugh until
I break with him. I want to be a seat in a cinema
that swallows lost popcorn. I want to creak open
and shut. I want to be nailed to the floor and
forced to be in a crowd and feel what they feel.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

The pier was packed with whispering ghosts.
Empty teacups span, desperate for milk and sugar.
Rock shops shut their doors,
disappointment spiralled through their innards.
Wet dogs kept themselves to themselves and vegan
restaurants opened Wednesday to Sunday.
Salt sprinkled on chips like dandruff on my shoulders.
Waves stretched up to rain clouds,
bending back like your nine-week-old eyelids
swallowing the ocean for the first time.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

When I peeled off your Lidl nappy
I saw one of my beard hairs
stuck to your right bum cheek.
I wonder what other bits
will fall off me and cling to you.
A dislike of coconut?
A love of the WWE Intercontinental Championship?
My fear of false imprisonment?
My inability to share a Share Bag of Doritos?
Maybe you’ll bite your fingernails.
Maybe you’ll have to scratch your left ear
immediately after you’ve scratched your
right ear in order to feel balanced.
Or maybe you’ll be you’re own person.
Fingers crossed.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

It was just a walk.
My feet took it in turns to be the one in front.
I was holding an open umbrella above my head
with my right hand because it was raining slightly.
Trees were stood up. Some were green.
Some were a bit green and a bit yellow.
There wasn’t much grass, to be honest.
The ground was mainly stones. Gravel, I guess.
I saw a bird, but I don’t know the bird names.
It was a black bird. But not a blackbird.
It was a bird that was black.
The air felt crisp and clean and wet.
I was one thousand years old.
The entire future was strapped to my chest.
A heart the size of a walnut punched mine
with a rhythmic strength I’ll never keep up with.
The breath of every dead relative whistled
through my ears and pushed me forward.
It was just a walk.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

On bad days
when I see someone carrying
a bunch of flowers I think,
What did you do?
But yesterday,
when a teenager bounced
past my window in the rain
cradling a collection of daffodils
like a litter of kittens, I thought,
Look what you’ve done!
My bank card dissolved
into a meadow.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

I decided to just take it easy.
I decided just to take it easy.
I just decided to take it easy.
I decided to just take it. Easy!
Easy! I decided just to take it.
I just decided to! Take it easy!
I decided to take it easy… just.

© Carl Burkitt 2020