I’m dying to go to the loo.
I’m dying for some crisps.
I’m dying to see that film.
I’m dying for a drink.
I often think of him
surrounded by other ghosts
with empty bladders, fistfuls of Pringles,
bums on cinema seats, sipping large Cokes,
when all he wanted
was to get home a little sooner.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

Standing at the urinals,
the peripheral vision man sneaked a look
and whispered Congratulations.
For a fleeting moment I forgot he was a colleague
referring to some good news
I’d announced earlier that day
and just looked down in the joy of a human
simply celebrating another human.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

Whenever I see a parent enter
a baby changing cubicle,
they always leave with the same baby.
If there was an adult changing cubicle
I would use public loos most mornings.
I wouldn’t make wholesale changes,
just enough to see myself the way you do.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

My living room window
is the most HD screen I have.
There’s rarely any repeats on,
except the man at the bus stop
I watch on a Tuesday afternoon.
Every week at 11am he sits down
and talks to people on the hard, red seat.
I can never hear him, but I see him.
He stays for about an hour with a tote bag
and then walks back from where he came,
never stepping foot on a bus.
It’s my favourite series of events.

© Carl Burkitt 2020