Three and a half minute souls are sitting
in the hands of the radio presenters’ voices.
After each track has finished they’re throwing
around words like ‘wind machine pop’,
‘gospel cheese’ and ‘electric posh’.
The writers of the songs are in different towns
buying milk for the morning, getting their
haircut before getting home in time to put
their children to bed, opening their notepad
when everyone else is asleep.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

Michael Owen doesn’t breathe
between sentences at fulltime
as much as he probably should.
He sounds like he’s going to pass out
from full stop to full stop
over the excitement of men
he doesn’t know scoring goals
that make his eyes the size
of a 1990’s Mitre. The day
he got a hattrick against Germany,
Mum was making a lasagne or bolognese
or sausage stew in the other room.
Emile Heskey made it 5-1
and my uncle swore for the first time,
loud enough to stop me breathing
until fulltime.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

The straight-spined man wearing a morning-clean shirt in the afternoon with a black backpack over one shoulder looks like Dr Christian Jessen from Embarrassing Bodies, the Channel 4 TV show. I’m sitting next to the window of the pub and he’s striding healthily past from the train station. I picture him stopping for a pint and asking me about my body. I would show him the patch of missing hair on my knee ever since the surgery I had at 14 and the scar on my scrotum when some bloke’n his team operated on them when I was seven. I’d ask him why my hands are the size of my Dad’s but my wrists are only half the size of my Dad’s and why my shoulders are not as resilient. I’d ask if it’s normal to have a toe on a right angle and if it’s common for a body not to feel safe with the brain it has. He’d tell me he works for an insurance company in town and offer me a pork scratching.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

She’s in London from Monday to Wednesday.
On Wednesday afternoon she’ll be flying
to Prague – she has to book a flight for that
actually, please do remind her – then she’ll be
flying from Prague to China on Saturday –
which will be nice for you to get to finally
meet her and see in-person what she brings
to the organisation – then she’ll be back
in Manchester the following Saturday
but don’t worry, she’ll pop all of this
in the diary so you can keep abreast of her
movements and importance.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

The bear is playing the violin
and my three-year-old son has no questions.
He lets the soft sounds of strings sensitively
struck by the front paws of a creature
that would swallow him whole
wash through his brain
until he asks why I accidentally said
‘ford’ instead of ‘fork’
at dinnertime yesterday.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

He walks into the pub and tells me
it’s good to see me
Because when I told you my wife had been dead
for five years, I actually meant nine years.
Time is a slippery bugger when there’s no-one
next to you on the sofa.
I ask if he’d like to join me
but he declines.
He finds his was to a table for one
and shouts the clues to the crossword
to my booth.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

The king of Scotland in the pub
with pork pie knuckles and a two pound tip
twinkling in his eye. A toddler with frog’s legs,
airplane arms and Rice Krispie teeth.
A fish with a fishing rod. A wardrobe in a hi-vis jacket.
A landlord made from the pages of a phone book.
A mixologist with disco ball earrings
disappointed with a breakfast tea order.
A commuter holding a steering wheel
like a dog-sitter pinching the top of a stuffed
poo bag. A debutant butcher holding his breath.
A gladiator with an NHS laptop. Laurel and Hardy
if Laurel and Hardy couldn’t write jokes.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

You can say the word conker.
You know what a conker is.
You can recognise the letters in the word conker.
C.O.N.K.E.R.
Conker.
When you see a conker on the ground
you say, “Conker”.
Last weekend, when we went looking
for conkers in the park and a conker
fell out of the tree and hit my head
you said “Oh no. A conker hit you.
Are you OK?”
You have a head and a heart and a mouth
that can say “conker”.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

It will probably involve
those people who look
over your shoulder
when you’re talking.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

I’m gently drying my naked body
after a shower in the flat I live in
with my wife and son
thinking about how, when asked as a child,
I would say I wanted to be a Chippendale when I grow up.
I’m no longer chipper
enough to be a stripper. My abs did not sit up
as much as I imagined they would
and I don’t like thinking
about how often I would apologise
to future mothers-in-law on hen dos
for the hairs of my rear end
bearing down on the knees of their jeans. 
I’m filling the mirror of this bathroom with eyes
and hips that can remember dancing,
and lips I hope will remember to tell my son
if he wants to be a train
you’ve got to keep choo choo chooing.

© Carl Burkitt 2023