Yep. Yep.
Bunny ear. Yep.
Hmm. Nice one.
Yep. Yep.
Can you smell leeks?
Yep. Soft, like ageing palms
in mashed potato. Well done.
Let’s start again. Yep.
Bunny ear, call it Sammy
build it a hutch in the back garden
but keep the cat away. Yep.
Oh look, the cat likes Sammy.
It will sit where the hutch was
and purr when it’s no longer alive.
Yep. Yep. Done. You’re amazing.

© Carl Burkitt 2022

They’re here every day,
taking it in turns to do
the bird of paradise pose
they learned in yoga.
The tide is wrapping itself
around their ankles
like a cup of tea
around a weekend biscuit.

© Carl Burkitt 2022

on the beach, all small pants,
big hair, black eyes,
each step a scene change
in an evolving montage.
I’m not sure if I’m getting better
but I can’t stop imagining
Adrian dying.

© Carl Burkitt 2022

He’s telling me about how
his label machine is the god damn slowest thing
the world has ever seen, it smudges ink
all over envelopes and if the Post Office
don’t do something about it soon
he will have to write a strongly worded letter.
A packet of Quavers sits on the counter
between us. He stamps his foot and asks me
if there’s anything else I need and thanks me
for understanding about the god damn wait.

© Carl Burkitt 2022

and I am finally him
whipping crosses in the box
for the handsome boys to head the ball
into the goal, rolling my shoulders
like they were monster truck wheels,
shooting finger pistols at strangers
firing back smile bullets. She calls me Craig
and I’m in the park pretending
I understand how to kiss with my lips
and like the taste of Sour Chewits.

© Carl Burkitt 2022

There’s no way the man on the telly had
enough time to fill the lake with lit lanterns
while his new girlfriend had a bath.
His bar is never full enough
for him to live next to the lake. I never see him
working out to get his body
and his favourite food is French fries.
There can’t be any wind where he lives
otherwise his hair would move at least an inch
from time to time. I like watching him
holding an axe. He never swings it,
he never sweats, he never overthinks it.

© Carl Burkitt 2022

Go on, get my shoes.

© Carl Burkitt 2022

I get the feeling
a Shirley Bassey fan has died.
His records are standing in a row
like flowers lined up at a doorway,
ill-fitting running tops on rails
hanging like abandoned dog leads
in a barely used hallway.
I wonder if this teapot is his;
the one with the black handle, chipped spout,
fingerprints that forgot how to press
the green button on a phone.

© Carl Burkitt 2022

The café says it serves All the drinks.
There’s an average looking tree
with a piece of tape wrapped around the trunk
saying Do not use. A man covered in paint
just high-fived himself on a roundabout.
Is it possible to be in lust a with a city?
If you look too closely, you might fall in love
and out of love and back in love,
so I just borrow London’s coat for a weekend,
walk around like I used to,
watch someone picking a punnet of cherries
outside a greengrocer’s at midnight
and blow the tarmac a kiss.

© Carl Burkitt 2022

It will make me think about
Enid Blyton running a crematorium,
Roald Dahl selling coffins,
Roger Hargreaves driving a hearse,
Julia Donaldson arranging flowers
into letters of my name
spelling them out phonetically
for you to understand.

© Carl Burkitt 2022