She doesn’t want cinnamon.
She doesn’t want cream.
She doesn’t want a cheese sandwich.
She doesn’t want a chocolate brownie
or a chocolate biscuit or a chocolate muffin.
She wants the hot cross bun latte
she asked for with almond milk.
Her black, logo-less cap sinks
further down her forehead
to the sound of her mum shouting
over everyone else, laughing
at daft puns from the man behind her,
coo-ing at the toddler with carrot puff dust
stained around his lips, asking strangers
if they have kids and telling the world
they’ll miss them when they grow up;
them and their ridiculous orders.

© Carl Burkitt 2022

After Lou Mach

You sit and think about how table legs have no feet.
You think about the mouth of a washing machine,
why our arms are not called branches,
why leaves on trees are not hairs.
You think about the life of a tea cup handle
and how few little fingers it’s been hugged by.
You think about whether or not
the blue you see is the blue I see
and whether or not eggs have feelings.
You think about it all and call it
The mysteries of life because you’re brave like that,
brave enough to think until your head
is a sock drawer eating everything it sees.

© Carl Burkitt 2022

Six spotless trainers
zigzagging in time
to the music of chitchat,
one wooden fork between three,
vinegar-soaked paper
flapping like gossiping lips
and oversized blazers.
Confusion. Too many fingers
get tangled. The bag of chips
drops as fast as jaws
to the floor. Silence.
The giggling points to a
future of soft shoulders
relaxing into a life
of not enough time.

© Carl Burkitt 2022

Her with a thick red coat.
You with a blue Cookie Monster jumper.
Her with a hot cross bun latte
and a slice of cherry Bakewell tart.
You with a miniature Tupperware pot
of sweetcorn and cucumber.
Her with not all of her teeth.
You with not all of your teeth.
Her with wrinkled skin and eye fireworks.
You on one side of the cafe.
Her on the other side of the cafe,
You waving.
Her shooting a finger pistol.

© Carl Burkitt 2022

They’re on a date sipping breakfast tea
in between questions they feel they need to ask,
How was your day? Where are you from?
The carpet sits beneath them: blue, clean, predictable.
The clear window next to their table shows
a black car, a black car, a black car driving past.
The sky is where it should be
and then the ceiling collapses, the walls melt
into a murder of crows, the afternoon
opens into a fire as she asks him
What scares you more than anything?

© Carl Burkitt 2022

The safety net disappears
from time to time, you are alive,
arms drop because joints soften,
a loose feeling of I can do this,
flying is easy when you have wings.

© Carl Burkitt 2022

I guess so,
a bit wet and predictable,
made of idle chit chat
and the crumbs of thin biscuits,
gently simmering under a lid,
sat next to a cheese sandwich at a wake,
a disposable bag filled with a billion pieces,
better in the hands of others.
She was asking the man in front of me,
but he was too busy swearing down the phone
waiting for his double espresso.

© Carl Burkitt 2022

and the colour ink you might have chosen.
I think about whether you would’ve dotted your i’s
or left them wondering who they are.
The neat, pre-packed boxes of your things scream
you would’ve folded the paper cleanly
down the middle, using a board marker thick
finger to keep it shut flush, no gaps to see through.
It’s impossible to walk past a dropped sticky note
or slice of notepad in the street covered
in desperate reminders for a living memory.
I collect lost shopping lists in supermarkets
and cobble together a basket of your final meal.

© Carl Burkitt 2022

Debris gathers in my back pocket
like guests at a surprise party.
Crumbs of cheese ask miniature pebbles
ask belly button fluff ask bits of leaf
ask cornflakes found under the sofa
ask torn tissue ask dead grass
ask hairs from tired heads
what they do, where they’re from,
what they’re up to this weekend,
who they know around here.
They talk about a hand the size of a plum,
the way it scooped them up and held them
in front of eyes bigger than a fruit bowl.

© Carl Burkitt 2022

and tell us something about the price of milk,
remind us what aisle the mangos live,
explain what time this supermarket closes
and whether we have any wholemeal bread
out the back and if there’s a secret
to how you walk like the world has no oxygen,
as if conversations are something we’re fortunate
to have and how it’s possible for you to look
at a stranger with the gentleness of a fresh leaf.

© Carl Burkitt 2022