From the rusty bricked bridge
you are a view from the TV show Virgin River.
The sun has decided to float
above the water, shine a light on the stillness
and ignore the drama of the locals,
for now.

© Carl Burkitt 2022

Its sign is the mouth of a parent
learning how to communicate.
Today I watched a man
pour a packet of salt over his chips
and then a packet of salt over his sandwich
and I could see the magic trick
of my mum’s thumb being held over
the salt shaker hole pretending
to season my basket of scampi.

© Carl Burkitt 2022

Lucky Stanley, I say,
to no-one old enough to understand.

© Carl Burkitt 2022

She’s talking about a dog
with an artistry her tongue takes for granted.
I know a plasterer who doesn’t know his arms
move smoother than a shooting star.
A football player on TV just welcomed a ball
on to the inside of his foot kicked from 70 yards away
softer than a parent waving goodbye to their child
as they pull out of the drive for the first time.
I watched a man volley an empty can of Coke
into a public bin a few years ago, he just walked
away to catch a bus and now he lives in my bones
whenever I feel I have nothing to do with my days.

© Carl Burkitt 2022

He is the size of a pedal bin.
He doesn’t need his grapes cut in half
but he prefers to eat them that way.
He is 4,000 years old and knows everything.
His leggings have a puffin, a cheetah
and a zebra on them. His skin is as smooth
as his bum and he is one day old.
He’s asleep. His brain is figuring out
how he will be awake in a different town
and one day he will rule the world.

© Carl Burkitt 2022

Your expectations of me
stretch further than the universe,
I feel like I could
walk on the moon.

© Carl Burkitt 2022

When our ears are in different rooms
we invent conversations we never knew
existed. He’s buried where?
It’s like dancing with an octopus.
You have to be with him though.
I can feel my brain asking my mouth
to repeat a language not invented yet.
Why would I take a dead man with me?
I do though. Everywhere I go.
He’s not dead. He’s with auntie Jane.
He’s with everyone I guess; in the clothes we wear,
the records we kept, the calls we never made.
Jane’s Brian, he’ll get a discount to Plymouth,
he needs to be with you on the train though.

© Carl Burkitt 2022

I leave the house for two days
and when I return you are a giraffe.
You still have the head of a chimp
but you have learned how to reach
the tops of surfaces with your mouth.
You can say Leaf and Lion
and you enjoy vegetables. I blink
and you are a whale in the bath
laughing at water up your nose.
I cough and you are a digger
scooping up the Earth whenever you can.
I blink and you are book and an apple
and a dinosaur and an upturned
packet of rainbow coloured crayons.
I yawn and you are train
running away from the station.

© Carl Burkitt 2022

For World Suicide Prevention Day

We could buy fishing rods
and stand on river banks
or hold darts and pretend
to appreciate the weight
or learn to bake and laugh
at soggy bottoms or climb
mountains or learn squash.
We could sit with our shoulders
next to each other looking out
from our porch as old men
talking about what we used to ignore.

© Carl Burkitt 2022

The moon is dropping
like an old coin into a memory box.
A bloke on the radio is miserable,
he can’t stomach his chinese takeaway.
Music has forgotten
it is allowed to be an escape
and not soundtrack a mood.
I woman has the greatest anecdote
on the world but refuses to say it
out of respect, despite it being about someone
who is known to have a good sense of humour.
Hobbies are dead for a few days
but they will return and we will sing
a new song.

© Carl Burkitt 2022