not understanding your skin
or the way you don’t like cold porridge
or the dog that’s too loud
or the eggs that don’t match
or the taste of banana
or how the high chair is not high enough
I’m eating at a steakhouse menu
wondering how many cows
didn’t like standing on cold metal.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

He sits on the play mat,
centre stage,
pointing at the audience of crumbs
and floorboard eyes
and stained cushions
and the roof of a secondhand furniture shop
and the TV remote under the plastic snail,
spitting out the sounds
of a person inventing language.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

The world is a terrifying place
when Huw Edwards is on mute.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

I guess it’s up to you
in life
whether or not
you have a sense of humour.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

matching hats,
until you discover
your head is a universe
I’ll never keep up with.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

It hangs in our kitchen,
faded pencil, resting
in a frame with hinges that sigh
for a time of school visits
from Gods with armbands,
before email sign offs
and unattainable dreams.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

and there’s a Kellogg’s logo on our trees
and the River Thames is Coca Cola
and Cheddar Gorge is made of LEGO
and Scafell Pike is an Apple product
and Google is the bottom of the North Sea
and on and on and on.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

During every recording
of Match of the Day Top 10,
Alan Shearer holds a pen.
He never chews it.
He doesn’t point it at anyone.
He doesn’t even fiddle with it nervously.
It’s just there, in the hand
he used to raise to the sky
when he scored a goal,
making his fingers feel useful.
It’s been four months since I’ve had a job.
I kicked a concrete step yesterday
with no shoes on. My little toe erupted
like St. James’ Park
after an unstoppable header.
I felt awake.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

so insert your eye colour here
and the smell of your favourite meal
and the feel of sand or ice on your toes
and the sound of your creaking gate
and the taste of blood or lemonade
and remember that the moon
or sun or clouds or fish and chips
or crumbs on a coffee table or greasy hair
or rusted people carrier or broken toenail
or receipt for a cancelled holiday
or discarded ham and pineapple pizza
you are looking at right now
is as unreal as you are.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

I am in a pub
where the landlord says my name
after the words What can I get you?
It’s funny the things that make us cry.
Today it was a man
with a perfectly round head
singing every word of a Stereophonics song
under his breath,
raising a half pint glass.

© Carl Burkitt 2021