I’m starting to forget what hands feel like.
And how to perform the two step dance with a stranger
before the weight of their chest against my stomach
makes me panic for being so tall.
It’s been centuries since I’ve put my cheek
on the cheek of someone in an office reception
and made a fake kiss sound.
Can anyone remember what my mum smells of?
I avoided eye contact with a spider plant yesterday
and resisted the urge to ask a spatula
if it was enjoying the sun as I waited for the lift
of my toast from the toaster.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

Bottle opener. Cheese grater.
I love perfectly literal names.
Hand wash. Tooth brush.
Names that don’t bother messing about.
Flying ants. Orange juice. DVD case.
Names like that make me
wonder what I should be called.
Conscious organ sack. Breathing flesh skeleton.
Poo chef. Walking worry beast. Oxygen hotel.
Future hearse passenger. Theme park for blood.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

If I was forced to eat a part of my own body
I would probably go for my quads.
They’re the right amount of meaty.
They feel like the kind of steaks I scoffed
before eating meat started making me queasy.
My head hair would be too curly to choke down,
my brain is full of rubbish, my skin is too dry
and my arse it too fine to get rid of.
I’d definitely go for the quads, they remind me
of the days I used to run through crowds,
sweat my way past whistles and horns,
cried in your raincoat skin at mile 13,
rejected the slice of pepperoni pizza from
the pensioner outside her terrace house
holding her Keep Going, Luvvies sign.
I’d reminisce over a slice of my quads,
they taste like trying.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

A faceless alien landed in the corner of our bedroom.
It had four legs and cream painted wooden bones.
Its skin was woven yellow and tattooed with llamas.
It smelled of talcum powder and puke.
It was screams and laughter and learning
and a slipper stepping on the fast forward
button.
It was a blowtorch having its way with a calendar.
It was a rollercoaster with no brakes,
an alarm clock made of sixty bum holes,
a piñata stuffed with every dream and fear
we’ve ever had waiting to shower our island.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

I put my naked feet on cold bathroom tiles
and told my toes they were patio slabs in shade.
I stood two inches from my bedside lamp wearing
loose grey shorts and a blue baseball cap.
The splinters and nails sticking up from the
living room floorboards were unwelcome weeds.
My bookshelves were unbending fences
draped in a million leafed pages of hard-spined
climbing plants. The toilet was a dirty pond,
the fireplace a BBQ, the drooping sofa a hammock.
When night came, the broken kitchen bulb
was the moon surrounded by LED spotlight stars.

© Carl Burkitt 2020