I see more dust than alive humans.
I wonder how many old eyelids and curious
fingertips are sprinkled across our bookshelves.
There must be the shadow of an anus or two
floating around the bathroom skirting boards.
The range of DNA on the front door handle
has been known to stress me out.
There are scratches on our bedroom floorboards
we were told were from former cats.
I can hear the struggles of ghost-meows
on the particularly tough days.
Snakes get a lot of attention for shedding their skin
but we are not the people we once were.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

I watched the rain fall
to the ground
and my flat was the caravan
I cut my lip shaving in for the first time.
The carpet was a water-logged 18-yard box.
The taps were the River Forth.
I watched the rain fall
to the ground
and it was a billion teardrop shaped people.
It was me. I was falling
to the ground
until I ran my fingertips across the stiff arms
of the sofa and reintroduced my feet
to the warm floorboards.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

I open envelopes like the dog you’ve always wanted.
You place the remains of packages
around the flat with the touch of a hurricane.
There’s not a skirting board
you haven’t stubbed a toe on
or a door frame that hasn’t banged my head.
But even vicars
forget the odd Sunday.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

Up and down.
Up and down.
Your lungs are welcome
to my share of oxygen.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

The man had three separate name badges.
One was clipped to his navy blue tracksuit jacket,
one was clipped to his lime green polo shirt,
one was clipped to his charcoal jeans.
Each one said Brian.
I wonder if his mates call him Brian Brian Brian.
Or Tri Bri or 3B or Triple Briple,
or Once, Twice, Three Times a Brian.
I wonder if they call him at all.
I wonder if they ask him how he is.
I wonder if they listen.
I wonder if they make him feel seen
as much as he’d like.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

There’s a little stack of unread books
sitting on a white, wooden unit in the living room.
They could be about absolutely anything.
Fire. Guns. The tale of a tree’s lifetime.
Wizards. Darts. Facts about jungles.
Perhaps there’s a young boy in one of them
desperate to learn how to ride a bike.
There’s probably death in one.
And fireworks. And chocolate.
Those untouched pages could be filled with worlds
made of first times and tumbling walls.
There could be terrified lions, broken watches,
roads leading to doors leading to rivers.
There’s definitely death in one.
There must be death in one.
I can feel it.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

I like combing my beard and thinking about
what historic bearded men thought about
when combing theirs. I imagine Abraham Lincoln
pulling out in-growing hairs and pondering
tomorrow’s breakfast; Karl Marx wiping milk
off his moustache, struggling to remember if he
locked the front door; Charles Darwin playing with
his sideburns and wondering if a newborn baby
will remember accidentally being sworn at;
Leonardo de Vinci separating split ends and bringing
you back to life in the mirror; Sophocles fiddling
with his goatee trying to work out the difference
between a clementine and a tangerine.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

There’s a dead pigeon
on the path outside my front gate
and I’m desperate
to write something
to do it justice,
but I can’t.
All I can think about is you
on the side of the road
surrounded by feathers,
the world walking around your body
giving you a wide berth.

© Carl Burkitt 2020