I woke up cold,
but not for long. My vacuum sleeping
arrangements and close proximity to
meaty pals warmed me up, prepared me
for the transition to a pan of piping hot oil.
Lobsters scream when dropped
in boiling water, and I always assumed
that’s what the sizzle of a bacon is:
a hellish cry for help. How wrong I was.
When our bodies hit our fate,
the sizzle of my mates translated to,
We’re here, we’re here. The leader
of the pack explained it was a spitting
smoked signal, of sorts, for every human
walking past a window saying,
I can smell bacon, can you smell bacon,
where’s that bacon coming from?

© Carl Burkitt 2023

It was fun guessing the mood of a hand
approaching me. I’d say the majority were
soft, focused, goal orientated. I didn’t mind
the sweaty ones, the jangly-pissed ones
needing three tries to turn me the right way.
But I longed for an aggressive one.
One that would shove me out of nowhere,
surprise me with feeling.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

It takes a while
but I try. It doesn’t
hurt as much as it
looks, but it does –
more than I’d admit.
It’s nice to get a
chance to show off,
to feel alive, to forget
the guy on the right.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

You are wearing my wife’s jumper –
the sage (?) green, thick rollneck
with a million white flecks like stars
across a countryside drive home –
but you are not my wife
because you are telling me
I am in your way and not looking
at me with eyes that have eardrums.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

The fingers and thumb on his left hand
are up as high as his arm will let them.
His right forefinger joins them.
One and five make six, he says,
for the first time since his muscles were
given blood and his teeth discovered
they can do more than eat.
Well done, I say.
What does well done mean? he says.
I look at the hairs that have grown
out of the crown on his head,
the way they lift and bend and fall
like waves, how his eyes know
to blink when the sun gets in,
the way his skin wears the world
like a reflection.
It means good job, he interupts.
Like how one and five make six.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

The shark is in a plastic wine glass
being held over the deep end of a swimming pool.
The show is about to start.
The shark knows what to do:
let its body fall when tipped towards the water,
sink to the bottom, wait, forget it has fins
strong enough to swim away and be forgotten,
wait, wait for a seven-year-old smile
to dive in with goggles, hold it in his hands,
lift it up into the sun and rescue it
in a way he doesn’t understand.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

You think the sky
outside the plane window
is the floor. Who am I
to stop you dancing
on that thought?

© Carl Burkitt 2023

The turtle
Is minding its own business.
Light finds its
Way through the
Sea and
I feel my shell softening.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

He’s at the corner of Kas Market on a Friday
selling sweetness and aggression,
juice and nails, snacks and work.
In our year 4 play at school I was cast
as one of three wine makers. An enthusiastic
teacher painted our feet and ankles purple
and we marched them up and down like hammers
on stage. Parents laughed at our fumbled
French accents as we sang a song about vineyards
we’d rehearsed for months. Back at Kas Market
the grapes of the stall owners eyes hang softly
in a face of hammers, his fingers exhausted
from an early morning of setting up his table,
organising his wares, writing his sign
in perfect English.

© Carl Burkitt 2023