but we gather in the Rat Trap pub 19 years ago
to make a fuss. We put words together
that fit easily, have an allergic reaction
to ideas formed from unfamiliar flavours.
Our Sunday league knees know
what it’s like to play in a position in which
we do not flourish, like a tap dancer
in charge of laying the wooden floorboards,
and we refuse to trust the heads of people
who have dedicated their lives to something.
I am celebrating my 21st birthday but I’m 18,
pretending my minimum wage has not spent
the last three years falling illegally
into the till of a kind man
fooled by my top button, polished shoes
and wet look gel painted on the hair of an ego.

© Carl Burkitt 2022

The man sits in the pub
with the wardrobe of a football pundit:
navy blue chinos, salmon shirt,
trainers pretending to be shoes.
The froth of bitter snows
from his moustache while he nods
to his own opinions
They just need to clear their lines.
The fullbacks need to sit.
The keeper can’t command his box.
The barman, all skull tattoos and flesh tunnels,
gently puts his book on the bar and says
I love the way Phil Foden floats
as if the pitch doesn’t deserve him.
The man crunches a dry roasted peanut.

© Carl Burkitt 2022

and my legs are chaotic spandex.
You pick me up by my torso
with the fingers of a wild referee.
Daft eyes can’t help me now.
It’s time to show the future how to wrestle,
how to follow the passion that keeps you
up at night. Come on then Dad,
you say. Let’s see what you’re made of.

© Carl Burkitt 2022

but he didn’t take a spoon.
The only way to get through the day
is to think about him
walking in the rain
scooping raspberry Onken into his mouth
with his Tommy Hilfiger spectacles.

© Carl Burkitt 2022

The moon is an exhausted firework
struggling to peel the duvet off
its skin every night to watch
people drinking hot chocolates
with lips desperate to talk
about the things they’ve done
and think, kids in wellies made
from the promise they can be
whatever they like. The bonfire is
too far away for the moon to feel
the warmth or hear the cackle of life.
The moon is too tired to explode.

© Carl Burkitt 2022

I never get
wrong number phone calls anymore.
Do people only call the people
they were intending to call now?
Is there a new generation
of confident button typers?
Or are they still out there,
trying to reach the wrong people
for the chance to say I’m sorry
to someone who’s really listening?

© Carl Burkitt 2022

The man on the pub’s TV is yelling about
every single goal Gareth Bale has ever scored.
His commentary partner is calling him a freak,
a legend. Dragons are roaring in the crowd.
There’s a circle of vomit, about the size of
a digestive biscuit, sitting on the seat next to me.
I haven’t noticed it for 81 minutes.

© Carl Burkitt 2022

pulling a thorn out of his gums.
There is a lion in the quiet carriage
tap dancing with firework shoes.
There is a lion in the quiet carriage
playing drums with a machine gun,
blow drying his hair with a pneumatic drill,
doing karaoke with a foghorn.
There is a lion in the quiet carriage
throwing every plate that’s ever been made
into a cement mixer made of glass.
There is a lion in the quiet carriage
who needs a new set of headphones.

© Carl Burkitt 2022

You have eyes
for snacks that make you
ready to digest fear.

© Carl Burkitt 2022

He is sitting alone
on a red chilli leather sofa
folding freshly printed menus
in the restaurant he owns.
He is wearing a white shirt
pressed as neatly as the napkins.
It is 8.30am, his hair is laminated
back with wet look gel. His chest
is the front door, desperate to open
and let you in.

© Carl Burkitt 2022