The bloke and his auntie are not eating
the gherkins next to their burgers and
I have never felt more lonely. Two mums
are discussing how their children have cried
every morning for two years going to nursery.
The owner of this eatery is brushing his teeth
behind the bar with his arm around his wife.
I can see two runners out the window
wearing denim shorts. Two blokes refused milk
and asked for five sugars in their tea.
The pair of gherkins are doing what they can
to convince me it wouldn’t be weird
if I just leant over and asked if I could eat them.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

He’s doing some kind of maths work in the pub
wearing a black and yellow Spice Girls T-shirt
looking like the coolest guy in the world.
Maybe it’s the set square jawline,
the smile wider than an Excel spreadsheet,
or the way he just ran out the door
and down the road quicker than Mel C
to hand an old lady the woolly hat
she accidentally left on her booth chair
before leaving. When he returned
with the hat on his head declaring
it was not actually hers, I would have
kissed his calculator-hard pecs
if he’d asked me to.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

They call time a race.
Frank does what he can to dance,
charge through days like a great Dane.
Hours lean
in to watch my lad
say yes to a dare,
choose Velcro over a shoelace.
There is no time to clean
the path in front of him. I ran
slowly, pretending I was real,
looking for a time-bending clan.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

Gerald woke up in a computer game
and felt his lives increase. He started
living carelessly: eating turkey legs off the street
floor, crossing the road without looking left
and right, texting ex-girlfriends and boyfriends
pictures of his pixelated biceps. Gerald stopped
looking after himself. He wore the same clothes
every day and spent afternoons trying to jump over
things too tall for him to jump over. During his
down time Gerald thought about the person
playing him, the guy holding the controller
dictating his movements. He imagined him
having curly hair, a shrinking confidence.
Gerald started living even more carelessly
and held the hand of the controller.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

There once was a man with a strong head
Who laughed about shit nights in bed
His baby was teething
lied life was so easy
But his eyes left nothing unsaid

© Carl Burkitt 2023

Twelve polished loafers
Half a dozen pints of ale
Zero how are yous

© Carl Burkitt 2023

Air cannot breathe between them,
the two-headed boy sharing shoulders.
The other kids at football club
respect space, spread out like new freckles
on hairless skin, but blood flows
between these two, sticks them together,
burns like jealousy or first love.
They will grow, call each other words
not yet invented, press each other’s buttons
with knowing bones. They will score
different goals, concede different goals.
Air will breathe between them.
Blood will continue to burn.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

My barber moves in precise silence.
When he’s in the weeds of my scalp
he does not care about my holiday
or what I am up to on the weekend.
He cannot see the weather through walls.
His scissors chat nervously.
The barber nods hello to every hair
and whispers goodbye.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

She doesn’t have enough time
to bite her cinnamon and sugar ring doughnut
because she’s writing poems with a pencil.
Her blunt silver tip is busy
scribbling what her eyes are looking at:
the man at the till ordering a chocolate muffin
wearing a novelty pizza T-Shirt
fashionably too big for his frame.
He has a thick wet tongue,
teapot-for-two sized biceps,
a moustache she may one day recommend
trimming.
Her coffee is asking to be sipped
but the man just waved at a baby in a pram
and has eyes that want to phone his mum
just to say hello. I wonder if it feels intrusive
having a poem unknowingly written about you,
the bits of you that pop recorded by a stranger,
and I contemplate asking her
where she bought her sleek reusable bottle.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

on and on and on.
He goes on about the bills
they’ve been charged not matching up
with the amount of energy they’ve used,
she says to her friend. He goes on about TV
shows going on too long. He goes on
about it raining and being sunny or cold
and how the chip shop up the road –
the one that does three different sizes
of curry sauce – is getting expensive. He goes
on about dust. He goes on about the importance
of play and creativity. She’s not touched her
sandwich or sipped her coffee. He goes on
about cheese. He goes on about 20 years ago
and the taste of Rennie’s. He goes on about
exploring the Lake District and James Bond
and the way our hands age faster than we do.
She says he goes on and on. On and on, she says.

© Carl Burkitt 2023