Cool dads do not exist in this house.
We take off our tops and beat our chests
pretending to be gorillas
managing a breakfast cafe
if it means getting cereal into you
without a fight.
We sit on train station toilet floors
transcribing the hedgehog story you must capture
if it means you’ll take a dump
before we go for a walk.
We worry and moan and cry and scream
and punch and tear at our skin
behind closed doors
if it means turning your mouth
into a hot air balloon smile
floating you towards sun and only sun.

Carl Burkitt 2024

Written while listening to ‘Float On’ by Modest Mouse.

You’ve got boy band written all over you today,
black skinny jeans and the dance move freedom
of no-one watching. You are the tall one at the back
who can’t sing, but with the torso to pull off
the no top and thin chain look. Your stage is
the flat window overlooking the audience of
our little town. A nest of birds stuffed in the chimney
of a secondhand furniture shop are chirping with you,
reminding you to keep singing,
especially when people are watching.

Carl Burkitt 2024

Written while listening to ‘The Man Who Can’t Be Moved’ by The Script.

A woolly mammoth charges into Cheadle Hulme
Costa Coffee and whacks a few cheese sandwiches
across the cafe before they had the chance
to become toasties. It plunges a tusk
into a triple chocolate muffin
and the other one into the barnet of a bloke
pretending to write a novel. A queue of customers
start running towards the exit and the staff
apologise profusely. A lady near the back of the room
doesn’t flinch. She sips her decaf latte
and gestures to the empty seat beside her
with an open palm. The mammoth drops its trunk
onto her table and slaps her lemon drizzle cake
off its plate. The mammoth growls and the lady
gives it the space to keep growling
until it’s ready to join her in a game of Code Words.

Carl Burkitt 2024

Written while listening to ‘Send Me On My Way’ by Rusted Root.

I sip fruity ale and say it rained in London –
the sort of rain you couldn’t see through
or the kind a film character would have to
hold a newspaper above their head
while running from the bus to the office.
I say it rained harder and longer growing up
down south between summers of pogo sticks
and drawing wonky tennis courts on cul de sacs
with Jason’s dad’s chalk. I say it rained
one Christmas Day. I sat in my room and played
Crash Bandicoot with one hand
in a tub of Salt and Vinegar Pringles. It’s true,
it rains every single day up here,
for at least 20 seconds. It’s important for my son
to see it come and go and to see me
let it wash down my face.

Carl Burkitt 2024

Written while listening to ‘Tears Are In Your Eyes’ by Yo La Tengo.

There’s a chunk out of my left shin
from a log or slide or swing from a dead park
I can’t remember. There’s a white scar
on my big toe from a glass bomb stacking
the dishwasher in the break of EastEnders
or Heartbeat or Ant and Dec’s Saturday Night
Takeaway I can’t remember. There’s a flash
in my skull from a pogo stick or a tennis racquet
or the sword of a 13-year-old pirate I can’t remember.
There’s a fallen bridge over an ancient stream
leading to a rejected kiss I can’t remember.
There’s a front door in my chest to a house
with the bedroom of a goalkeeper who stood
by my side until the air was stolen from his legs
and I can’t remember what I can’t remember.

Carl Burkitt 2024

Written while listening to ‘I’m On Your Side’ by Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats.