[A FISH is lying on the living room carpet. Not in water (this bit’s important). PAUL walks into the living room.]

PAUL: You OK?

[Curtain]

Carl Burkitt 2025

It’s taken two hours
on the first date in the pub
for him to finally say
something she’s interested in.

Carl Burkitt 2025

Sertraline has removed
the observations from my day.
I’m sitting in the cafe
summoning the strength
to notice the pensioner eating a Babybel,
the builder drinking black tea,
the toddler calling his panini a pa-wee-wee.
The muscles around my finger bones are
begging my eyes to watch
the steam floating from the teapot
from across the way form a swaying beard
around the chin of the baby sitting near it.
I have done nothing
harder than reminding my senses
to play with the world today.
They’re too busy thanking the drugs
for not letting me hurt myself.

Carl Burkitt 2025

He’s being interviewed about winning the Wimbledon men’s tennis final. The interviewer licks her dry lips and asks what it’s like to be a hometown hero, but he bats it away quickly with the fact he only lived in Wimbledon for six months during the 2020 Covid pandemic before moving away. “I couldn’t tell you what it was like,” he says, “but apparently I used to sit in my high chair at the window and watch the buses go by”. The interviewer smiles at his Manchester accent and asks who is responsible for his success. He takes a bite out of a plain Dairy Milk chocolate bar and thinks about his mum.

Carl Burkitt 2025

I’m drinking strong lager next to two women who have never been in this pub before. The lady in the leopard print top and leopard print Converse shoes tells her friend in the grey skin that she was recommended this place by a colleague because of its famous cheese dumplings. The woman in grey skin melts into a thousand colours as she says she knows because the food in this pub saved her life during a particularly low period. I think about leaning over and telling them that I have known the head chef for 27 years, but decide not to make this poem all about me.

Carl Burkitt 2025

Everybody freezes
like they’re a criminal,
except the bloke with
a stolen bottle of red wine
hidden in his pocket.
He gives me a stained wink
and offers me a sip outside
in the carpark
while trolley boys panic.

Carl Burkitt 2025

A stranger keeps putting their dog’s poo
into my garden waste wheelie bin.
So today I put my garden waste into her dog:
leaves in the mouth, bark up the bum,
grass up the nose, conker shells in the ears.
Only joking.
I just waved as she did it again
and wondered how she talks to her children.

Carl Burkitt 2025

[TINY TERRY dives head first into a cup of tea. Fortunately, Tiny Terry has his miniature Spider-Man armbands on so he has a joyous swim through the boiling hot drink. He giggles as he wiggles his toes and splashes about. A chocolate biscuit dips into the cup and Tiny Terry takes a bite before backstroking in circles a thousand times with a smile on his face.]

TINY TERRY: YIPEEEEEEEE!

[Hahaha none of this happened, of course.]

[Curtain]

Carl Burkitt 2025

For Pauline

Some poems don’t need to be clever.
Sometimes they just need to be
about someone who likes to look at the sea.
Someone who doesn’t know why
she likes to look at the sea.
Someone who doesn’t know
what makes her just look at the sea.
Someone who gets lost in the repetition of
the waves as she looks at the sea.
Someone who knows she is tiny in this gigantic world
and is lucky to be alive at the same time as the sea,
the sea she likes to look at

Carl Burkitt 2025

[MICHAEL and MIKE are hugging.]

MICHAEL: I love you, Michael.

MIKE: Please, call me Mike.

MICHAEL: No.

[Curtain]

Carl Burkitt 2025