He’s not reading
the car advert poster
above the service station urinal
because he has his back to it
and is pissing out
on to the middle of the floor.

Carl Burkitt 2024

alone,
dance music no longer crawling
out of the pub, the sun rising with
disappointment in him, Londoners
going to work with top buttons,
city farm animals waiting for food,
his dangling feet desperate for an owner
with a tongue that says what it means.
He would be searching for a patch of grass
to rest his spine until a lack of courage
knocked him out – a chance to dream
about walking down the river, a nervous
bowl of chips, ring fingers brushing briefly
while passing over a bottle of wine.

Carl Burkitt 2024

He bought a cardboard tub of nachos
and crunched his way through a film
about wrestling and dying men.
Cheese dropkicked his teeth, guacamole
frog-splashed his tongue, salsa held
his moustache in a side-headlock.
It was fun, the next day,
thinking of light-hearted ways his food
could have hurt him – more fun than sitting
in the atmosphere created by the death stare
at his echoing jaw from the woman behind him.

Carl Burkitt 2024

I spent a day as King Kong,
tore up a couple of cityscapes,
shoved my toe through a skyscraper window,
hit my chest loud enough to frighten birds,
snapped my jaw back, yelled through clouds,
held an officer worker in my palm –
I could feel his shivering heart speeding up,
his spine melting like butter at the thought
nobody would come to save him.

Carl Burkitt 2024

Just look at my soft tummy,
the way I carry food in plastic bags
and worry about the planet melting,
the end I open a banana,
the dust on my stack of books,
the way I quietly say ‘You’re welcome’
as people walk through a door I’ve held
open when they don’t say ‘Thank you’,
the droop in my shoulders,
they way I should have died 30 years ago
from tonsilitis or an undescended testicle,
the travel toothpaste in my wash bag,
or how I once punched a wall
because spellcheck wasn’t working
on my laptop.

Carl Burkitt 2024

Top deck, front row,
your first roller coaster.
You are taller than a traffic light.
Thin glass is the only thing
stopping twigs tickling your hair.
You scream ‘hello’
at the roof of a café run by
a woman you know
then the street of a man you know
then a pub we’ve never been in.
You wave at a crane.
A builder on the seat behind us
asks if you’d like to see a picture
of the crane he works with
on his phone and you say yes
and you wave at that one too.

Carl Burkitt 2024

The hospital gave us a loaf of unsliced bread
and here we are, 40-something months later
with an empty bag. Crumbs
dotted behind sofa cushions, inside slippers,
on bookshelves, in pockets and hats,
tucked underneath fingernails, buried in conversations,
spread across every surface and story
and opportunity to find a new corner.

Carl Burkitt 2024

The public noticeboard in the cafe was stuffed
with lads willing to walk dogs, gyms set to open,
yoga experts, local theatre groups recruiting
people to tread the boards, slimming groups.
In the middle of the posters designed with
varying degrees of expertise was a hand written
scrap of paper: CLEANER, PREPARED FOR IT ALL.
I drafted an email on my phone explaining
I needed someone
to climb in and sort out the bit between my ears,
to tidy up the surfaces, declutter the drawers
to allow them to open up more easily. I typed
how I needed someone
to take charge of the heavy dust, stubborn stains.
And, like all emails that change the world,
I left it in the drafts folder for a few days.

Carl Burkitt 2024

The trailer for the Bob Marley biopic finishes
and people down my cinema row start whispering
how they can’t believe it’s not been made before
and start listing people they think deserve
a biopic about them: Wayne Rooney, Jeff Bezos,
Beyonce, the Cat Bin Lady, Seal, that bloke
who shouted “Fenton” at his dog in Hyde Park.
I go to lean in and tell them the bloke
who shouted “Fenton” at his dog in Hyde Park
in fact did it in Richmond Park, but the empty seat
next to me whispers how doing so will give away
why I am in the cinema on my own.

Carl Burkitt 2024

I am a grown up now
so I light a scented candle in the bathroom
after using the toilet for a challenging poo
and I think of you
and the way you are nothing
but an annual flame
sitting on a wick
until you disappear again.

Carl Burkitt 2024