She’s OK, you know. Still strong enough to complain! … That’s not fair. The wound’s taking a lot longer to heal than we thought. I told the nurse we should let some air get to it, but she insisted the gel they’re using under the dressing on her stomach is helping it heal from the inside out … what do I know? We’re walking two miles a day. Same route over again. It’s reminding me of lockdown. It’s not exciting … that’s not fair. Her company is as alive as a thousand people.

Carl Burkitt 2024

He’s dropped his phone but his back’s
packed in so he has a choice to make:
ask me
or the chess playing couple opposite him
or the chap pretending to read the paper
or the mother hoping her daughter
will stay asleep in her pram long enough
for one more mini bottle of prosecco
or the guy from the charity shop flicking
through the scuffed Where’s Wally book
he bought for his nephew
or his oldest pal next to him desperate
to finally do something useful
or attenpt to pick it up himself.
His guttural scream is enough
to tell you what happened next.

Carl Burkitt 2024

Find yourself a local pub
where you feel comfortable
interrupting a group of strangers
to correct their football knowledge
without feeling like a knobhead
or getting glassed in the mouth.

Carl Burkitt 2024

I don’t think
the words printed on the back of the man’s jumper
factored in the thoughts
racing through my mind
as I read them
in a queue for 25 minutes
while the cafe’s coffee machine was being fixed.

Carl Burkitt 2024

Good ones, he says, proper goats are
ones with beards on their chins
and sticky out ears on their long faces.
They’re like sheep, Daddy, but they’re
goats. Goats. You know, they’re goats, like
on that school residential trip you went on to
a farm somewhere in Wales for a week,
Tragoze, I think, where that farmer, the one with
grey in his beard and age on his tummy took
one look at you on the Monday
and said, you look like one of our goats.
Tuesday to Friday, you were called
Goat Boy and
one of the girls said she’d never kiss you
and made goat noises in your eyes and
the farmer patted your head like, well, a
goat and you still wish, how, instead of dwelling
on the loneliness that grew into
anger
that week, you spent the time looking at
Graeme’s face
over
and over
to allow you to write about it in better detail.

Carl Burkitt 2024

Before the sitcom credits begin,
and just after a character is ridiculed
for being a bit different than everyone else,
the words IN LOVING MEMORY flash on the screen
with the name of a stranger. The bite of mushroom
pizza in my mouth feels inappropriate
and I bow my head slightly
like when a hearse drives through the street
in a morning and commuters are rudely reminded
about the pointlessness of their rushing.

Carl Burkitt 2024

Don’t worry
I’ll be a professional wrestler one day
and we’ll squeeze ourselves into rental cars
and talk about the size of our thighs
and how daft John was throwing himself
off that balcony on to Pete(?)
and the way Jemima elbowed Claire’s neck
and the 68-strong audience in Albany
and the scent of death in the dressing room
and the little kid in the front row who had
your t-shirt on and no teeth and no parents
and was so convinced I was a bad guy
he flicked an M&M into my eye and asked me
how do I sleep at night hurting you every day.

Carl Burkitt 2024

After Purple Mountains

Friends are warmer than gold, when you’re old, the man in my ears is telling me. He’s singing about his happiness and how it’s all gone. How he makes strangers everywhere he goes. Well, for once the man singing these things is not me. I’m too busy looking out the window and picking toast crumbs from my teeth. Goodness me, the man seems quite sad, he reckons some of the strangers he meets are people he was once happy to know. He keeps pressing on though, and that’s why I’m not sure whether the man singing is me or not. He’s barely hanging on, and I can remember a time when my fingers nearly slipped off the windowsill. I don’t think I was holding on then, something or someone else was. I was just there, you know? 10,000 afternoons ago this man’s happiness overflowed. That sounds nice, you know? But I think I know what he means. You can definitely eat too much ice cream or stay at the party for too long before you realise all your happiness is gone. It’s time to press on.

Carl Burkitt 2024

I have a gym bag now.
I keep things in it.
I keep things in my gym bag like
a padlock for a gym locker to hold my gym bag,
a pair of gym trainers for my gym feet,
a pair of gym shorts for my gym bum (and gym willy),
a mini deodorant for my mini gym armpits,
a banana for my gym tummy,
a pen for my gym thoughts,
a part of my brain that hates my gym body,
a part of my brain that knows gyms are silly.

Carl Burkitt 2024

I don’t ask questions anymore.
I enter rooms and nod at demands.
I get on the floor and do something
that has never been done before.
I don’t ask questions anymore.
I enter rooms and nod at demands.
I don’t think. I just do. And hope
I don’t cock up the dreams of an architect.

Carl Burkitt 2024