The walk to school was an obstacle course of death.
The puddles hated him. The rain was clenched fists.
The tree branches were the whips of jellyfish tentacles.

If the wind wasn’t spitting ‘Go away!’ in his face
it was pushing his shivering chest to head back home.
But his feet refused to stop moving his scooter forward.

His forehead headbutted the breeze into oblivion.
His gloved fingers punched doubt in the temple.
His five-year-old body was ten times its size.
All because his dad is too scared to learn to drive.

Carl Burkitt 2026

It’s a big choice as a funeral song
for a 16-year-old.
His coffin strutted down the aisle
in my mind’s eye
as me and my mates stood
in borrowed suits not fully grasping
how small the small talk would be at the wake.
Acne does not belong in a crematorium.
I have a memory of his dad trying
to make us laugh and keep us comfortable
around an ocean of ghostly relatives
while his legs kicked below the surface.
The first time my son ran through the living room
and bumped his head on the coffee table
to the sound of a traffic collision,
I was prepared to never leave the house again.

Carl Burkitt 2026

“This is the highest motorway in the UK,”
my wife says (again) behind the steering wheel
with the beautiful predictability
of the Pennine Hills smiling beside me
outstretched with pride of the north.

Carl Burkitt 2026

The trailer in the cinema says,
“Sometimes we need someone
who reminds us that we exist”
and the man in the row behind me
farts. He leans forward to apologise
but all I can hear is his wife’s laughter.

Carl Burkitt 2026

The man dragging the full industrialised dehumidifier
across Cheadle Hulme Costa has zero sweat
on his neck, forehead, armpits, biceps and –
presumably –
above his buttocks. Even his mouth is dry
until a young barista carries over
a cup of something hot (I can tell by the
steam)
and a pastry. He waves the pastry and chins
the cup of hot liquid. I wouldn’t say
his scream is unbecoming, but the way he
threw the dehumidifier was deafening
(and impressive).

Carl Burkitt 2026

I like to imagine him sitting on his sofa
in a pair of fluorescent orange and green pyjamas.

On his lap is a dinner of chicken skewers
with a bowl of Chupa Chups for pudding.

He’s holding the TV control in an upright position
the base resting on his restless thigh,

sporadically pausing Traffic Cops
to let thoughts cross
from one side of his brain to the other. 

Carl Burkitt 2026

Tiger Woods is playing Australian crazy golf
in the north of England in January.

His PING branded woolly hat is not only
happy to be useful on such a cold afternoon

but thrilled to show his date he has all the gear.
She is far too busy chattering her teeth,

pretending not to want him
to offer her either his gilet or his ski jacket

to notice he has been at least 4 over par
on every single hole.

Carl Burkitt 2026

My son is a snowman.
His pink carrot nose twitching
in the cold Sunday air,

twig fingers dancing across
barely formed car bonnet mountains,
sledge heart racing towards
a day of ‘It’s finally here after waiting all Christmas’,

woolly hat ears ignoring the neighbours
next to our drive tutting about how
this quarter inch of light snowfall might
‘possibly, maybe, make it slightly trickier
to get to work tomorrow morning.’

Carl Burkitt 2026

I could just say the arms of the plane-spotter
standing behind the runway’s fence
are the wings of an Airbus A380

or the vertebrae in his spine
are rows of seats on an Ryanair flight
or his lips are wind socks
or his eyes are propellers

but the truth is his nose is
the stretched out point of a Concorde.
It’s moulded with a one-of-a-kindness,
designed for sniffing out adventure.

Carl Burkitt 2026

The lad on BBC London’s New Year’s resolution was
to ‘Get a tortoise’. And he got one on 1 January.
He named it Banana and it lives on a skateboard.
I don’t know the boy’s name but his smile
was longer than the time it would take
for his new best friend to beat a hare in a footrace.
I could live in the space where his top teeth are missing.
His second resolution is to ‘Be the best tortoise parent’
and I put my phone down to build some Lego.

Carl Burkitt 2026