There’s a plastic duck in my bath
with a digital clock on its back.
When the water is too hot
the screen screams red in anger.
When the water is too cold
it stays yellow and beep beeps caution.
When the water is ready to let you in
it gives a thumbs up green.
When I stand in a supermarket queue
or one of the six lifts at work
or wake up with a face that isn’t mine
I wish my spine would change colour.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

Our bathroom is a bus stop.
The toothbrushes are softball bats
and the wash bin is my backpack.
The skirting board is a kerb
for a stray dog called Pigs
to sit on and lick every drop
of water from the puddle in my hand
and the mirror is your phone taking pictures.
Her eyes were understandably dead
but even they could see what was going on.
I’m glad yours did too.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

If I could swim with the strength
and confidence I would like,
I’d kick through the veins in your hand.
I’d butterfly up your arm and across your chest
and land in your heart to have a nosey
at all the things you love dearly: puking, screaming, collecting fluff between your toes,
pooing the green of grass stains you may get
on your knees one day, pissing, staring,
having bath water splashed up your arse,
peeling off my skin each day
and allowing me to start all over again.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

What if you’re the guy who’s supposed to discover
a hidden fruit on a far away island
containing a super vitamin that helps
human beings live for 200 years
but I make us late for the 93 bus
that would take us to the crumbling library
for a Saturday story time session
with a too jolly to be real 30-year-old poet
and you get bored of his obvious rhymes
so you slink off to shyly stare at the dusty
shelves of travel books and bump into a friendly
former geography teacher called Jean
who recommends reading the dark red one
that sparks a fire in you I never saw
all because I just couldn’t resist that extra
slice of raspberry jam on toast before we left.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

When you were a poppy seed then a lentil
then a peanut then a grape then a fig
then a hamster then an apple then a banana
then a melon then a puppy then a rabbit,
who knew you would become
a file name on our laptop
stuffed with documents you cannot see.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

When I run out of answers
I look at the skin around my hands.
I study the swirling contours
like unfamiliar lines on a tourist map
and follow the shadow of vein rivers
in the disgusting translucent patches.
I feel sick at the thought
of how many things they’ve touched
until I remember they’ve fixed
as many things they’ve broken
and get to hold the thin limbs of a creature
who will show me what’s what.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

The words trickled into my inbox
with a sinister creeping wetness.
As the water submerged my ankles
I realised I’ve never seen a zebra up close
or held a trombone or bought a seesaw.
My leg hairs floated to the idea
I’ll probably only watch Godfather once or
twice more and read less than a thousand
books and have a different fringe each year.
Sitting in drenched clothes I made peace
with the fact I’ll never be able look
at a taut rope tying a canal boat to a dead weight
concrete bollard or a rustic wooden beam in a
Spanish villa on Place in the Sun: Winter Sun
without drowning in the knowledge
time runs out.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

You’re sat on my lap
and a man with leather tight skin
has a shotgun in the mouth
of a man with chin stubble.
You don’t even flinch.
Your limbs relax
into the soft of my stomach
as your bullet eyes shoot
across the eight inches they can see,
stealing all my oxygen.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

Untouched bubble wrap begging to be popped,
the sun refusing to go down on the day,
your name in lights across a palm-sized screen,
a gap for a bum on the chipped window sill,
unusually forced conversation, silence,
the news, freezing cold magnolia walls, silence,
broken white blinds, a deflated football,
one beige curtain peppered with bullet holes,
a birds eye view of my dangling feet,
a discarded chicken wing shaped like a man,
seven empty pint-glasses lined up like headstones,
a carpet made from the quicksand
of unasked questions and a goodbye.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

A pint for your birthday
will be swallowed without question.
But this year I will bathe my baby before bed.
As I let the water wash over 4-week-old fingers
I will imagine who he will sit with on a school bus.
I will imagine who will copy his German homework.
I will imagine him being a below average goalkeeper.
I will imagine him asking me to learn to ride a moped.
I will imagine him all over the local news
and the two grey hairs in my beard will be a sad man
standing behind a plinth reading memories.
Tonight your dad will set off fireworks at home
while I grab a dry towel and get used to now sharing
more in common with him than I did with you.

© Carl Burkitt 2020