It’s Christmas Day and everyone has finished
eating firsts and seconds and,
in an unnamed person’s case, fourths.
There’s something about the dinner table
spending a day in the living room
that adds a level of chaos to conversations.
A man with glasses who shares my blood says
Elvis Presley served him fish and chips last week.
A teenager who is 100 years old and shares
a wall with me trusts and believes him.
She’s laughed at for 25 years
until I look at my son with eyes
I hope will be brave enough to trust and believe.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

And she put the tangerines in her basket
to the righthand side of the dozen eggs
but on top of the dark cooking chocolate
then made her way to the magazine aisle
to flick through stories with headlines like
MY DOG HAS THE SOUL OF MY DAD’S EX
and she chose a birthday card for her sister
with a pun about gin then put it back
and chose one with a sketch of cat
then put it back and thought she’d get the card
from a different shop then went back
to the fruit and veg section to get some tangerines
but remembered she’d already got tangerines
so went to the self-service checkout to pay
then went home and retold her afternoon with vigour.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

The thick coughs of milk are my shoulders,
the skin under my eyes is the back of an open mouth,
the sagging bars of a clothes airer are my ribs,
the lines on a digital clock are my eyelashes,
there’s a constant feeling of forgetting
and that is the same t-shirt for three days,
my toes are legless sheep,
the bedside lamp is at the end of a tunnel,
my freckles are dust on the bathroom floor,
the welcome mat is a filthy pillow,
the alphabetised books on my shelves are all Zs.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

He has the fingers of a man
who picks his nose when he’s alone,
the eyelashes of a man
who flicked Dijon mustard into his eyeball,
the pert bum of a man
who pooed himself at his work desk,
the hairline of a man
who sweats the small stuff,
the toes of a man
who walks in circles,
the shinbones of a man
who dangles his feet over ledges,
the core of a woman
who goes and goes and goes.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

The number of ingrowing hairs
in my beard
gives me confidence
there’s something in my skull
worth digging for.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

Jo Diamond
I give names
Nate Blinkerton
to stars
Sally Lighthole
in the sky
Sam Hotspots
when trying
Jack Fire-Eyes
to avoid
Joan Crikey
what I’m thinking
Sergeant Deadflame

© Carl Burkitt 2020

There are mornings
my body feels
like it’s waiting for someone
to scoop me out of the bath
with a fistful of tissue
and nervously throw me
out the window.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

I found myself
in the bathroom with the TV remote.
I’m not sure what I was hoping
to fast forward or rewind
but I paused for thought.
I always seem to be
carrying something these days,
be it in my hands, my shoulders
or the fog in my brain
that doesn’t trust either of those.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

The sun rose and birds sang
and all those obvious things.
Coffee tables carried on kicking me,
buses still came in giggling twos,
salt and vinegar Pringles didn’t go easy
on the underside of my open mouth,
the uphill cycle to work was steeper, if anything.
I was no closer to knowing the name
of the guy I’d been speaking to for six months,
his tie was still far too short
and he didn’t take a day off
from microwaving his salmon lunch.
When I went to the off license
the man behind the counter gave me a wink
and didn’t even ask about you.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

Hairy hands making mashed potato
into a dance.
Scissor fingers soften
at the sight of rhythmic wrists,
clenched jaws replaced
with memory foam cheeks.
The golden days of powdered Smash
float under our chins
like secret pork pies beneath the lettuce
at the back of the vegetable crisper.
You fold butter into King Edward
like peace signs across my forearms.
The roughness of your palms
melt my shoulders apart,
my chest is a gravy tub opening –
a tickle of the nose,
a bouncing thumbs up.

© Carl Burkitt 2020