You bend
a back
a quarter
of mine
to pick
up dead
conkers
in the
park we
share
and fake
moan
to sound
like a man
you think
you want
to be.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

Her jumper says
she’s a part of the Caffeine Club.
A man with no ring on his finger will walk
over in unscuffed Nike Air trainers to ask her,
What’s the first rule of Caffeine Club?
She will take the hair out of her eyes,
scan the field for her toddler trying to escape,
stop her baby picking up chewing gum from the floor.
He will repeat the question.
She will say nothing.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

I’ve always opened satsumas
in a way that leaves the skin
shaped like a penis and testicles.
It’s easy and very fun to do.
It doesn’t matter where I am –
at work, at a picnic with my son,
at the wake of a funeral.
I sometimes imagine my skin
being as shiny and orange as a satsuma.
I imagine the job I’d have, the way
my son would look at me,
whose funeral I’d be crying in.
I imagine being held by a concerned hand,
being pierced by two thumbs,
my skin peeled into a shape
to make you smile.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

My grandma is a tin of leek and potato soup.
I would buy one every week when I lived
in Bournemouth – typically on the days
the seaside made Swindon feel further
than the moon, or I was hungover –
because I was never confident enough
to peel potatoes and simmer leeks
in my university hall’s kitchen. I would
heat the green comfort with a microwave
and eat it in my bedroom with a can of lager.
Grandma never saw me drink; I was
just young enough to need a pair of hands
to help me put a plaster on when she died,
years before soup tins had ring pulls. I imagine
the click of the metal opening is grandma
tutting for not making my own.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

The new guy working in the café
doesn’t completely fill the teapots-for-one
with hot water and I don’t know if I should
say anything. There’s a mother sitting
on the blue and green floral sofa by the window.
She’s dipping a double chocolate chip cookie
into her milky coffee telling her toddler
to stop waving his stuffed dog around
because dogs cannot fly. The new guy
just gave the retired bloke I see here
every Tuesday a cheese and tomato toastie
instead of a cheese and ham toastie.
The retired bloke takes a bite
in my direction and says, He’s halfway there.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

The smiling men with no hair are laughing
about Switzerland and euthanasia.
Their pint glasses are empty
and their ring fingers are dead.
They are talking about life
after divorce and going grey
and how their parents have all paid off
their mortgages and spend their days
twiddling their thumbs together at home.
The landlord interrupts, suggests
they should invite their parents for a drink.
Nah, one smiling man with no hair says.
They wouldn’t be caught dead buying a round.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

He’s eating ready salted crisps
because they are plain enough
not to upset his tongue or tummy.
He has dropped down from 5% beer
to a 4% because fun can fly at him
too hard sometimes. He’s sat
by the window, waving at the toddler
who won’t stop staring at his beard.
It’s a reasonably sunny day,
with just the right about of wind –
the kind that picks up litter and makes
standard afternoons feel more magical
than intended.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

I
Four legs and a tail
Ears either side of its head
You know, like a dog
II
But with human eyes
And a tongue for blueberries
He is more than that
III
He is a pillow
He is a pair of slippers
He is a heartbeat
IV
He thinks about rain
Watches it through shut windows
Sits on sick shoulders
V
He waits patiently
For them to be ready to
Grab a waterproof

© Carl Burkitt 2023

If I was a Premier League football player
I’d have a wonderful haircut. I’d let
the curls in my fringe express themselves,
allow clippers to run up my neck and around my ears.
I’d give a portion of my income
to a mental health charity, sure, while collecting
NFTs of my favourite wrestlers’ heads and buying
a small village in Somerset to turn into a life-sized
version of the Island of Sodor. I would walk about
the streets wearing no sunglasses, no hat, no hood.
I would be desperate for anyone to stare
and point and say, Wow, that’s the man who kicks
a ball as smooth as a nib moves across paper.
I’d probably stop trying to write poems
on account of visiting children’s hospitals
and modelling for a local crotchless pants inventor.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

They’re sharing a toasted teacake,
noticing how the cafe is quieter than usual.
The sound of the knife
running butter over their treat
is a mid-afternoon firework, the scratch
of a record playing the song of their first dance.
They don’t ask each other how much jam
they want – their preferences live
like tattoos under each other’s skin.

© Carl Burkitt 2023