I got awoken in Cheadle Hulme Costa
by a man wearing a coat with buttons
more suited to the chest of a gingerbread man.
Fortunately, I did not bite his fingers off
as he explained where and when I was.
I want to be good at small talk
so I offered him a hot chocolate. He shook
his head and said cocoa sends him to sleep.
I thank him for pulling me back
to reality and said I’m recovering from a virus.
He walked backwards to his seat
and put large headphones over his ears.

Carl Burkitt 2025

His smile is first class
and I’m not shying away from the pun.

It sends me to a new world
where joining the queue was worth it.

Carl Burkitt 2025

No one on this 12:21 train knows
I was in the shower 11 minutes ago.
The chap to my left has his top button undone,
tie pulled down a few inches,
like his morning meeting was a boxing match.
The woman opposite me has eight shopping bags.
I can see a broccoli nestled between eggs
and a roll of Father Christmas wrapping paper.
The man to my right is typing the word ‘stress’
with his fingers on a phone that looks exhausted.
I can still feel the mint body scrub in my bum
and taste the beer I might have in a bit.

Carl Burkitt 2025

She isn’t saying much,
just letting the soft soles of her outdoor Crocs
float her through the aquarium.
Her children smile at green sea turtles,
hide from baby sharks, laugh at the sting ray’s face.

She softly explains the piranha skull
they’re looking at is dead and cannot bite them.
When her husband tries to get her attention,
she snaps her jaws to say she’s busy with the kids.

The sign on the wall reads:
Rabbitfish are a very peaceful species,
and predators tend to leave them alone
because of their venomous spines.
I decide to write a poem.

Carl Burkitt 2025

I tell her I’ve been married for 7 years.
She tells me she’s been married for 57.
“What’s your secret?” I ask
like a local journalist running out of ideas.
“Don’t waste time talking to me,” she winks.

Carl Burkitt 2025

He’s standing in the sea
with his arms outstretched,
knees bent, waving
imaginary locks on his bald head.
“He wishes he tried surfing years ago,”
his daughter says to me on the sand.
I watch him stroke his grey beard,
salt water glistening on cheek wrinkles
and lifts one leg out of the tide
like a flamingo. “Cocky sod,”
says his wife from a sunbed.

Carl Burkitt 2025

I want to write a poem about the sea
but my son keeps running away from the tide.
He says it’s a crocodile nibbling his toes.
His cousin is kicking the waves like penalties,
burying each one in the top corner.

Carl Burkitt 2025

The leaves on that tree are all red
like a load of blood blisters
or something more cheery
like a slap mark on an outstretched thigh
in an October Saturday football match
you’re desperate
to do anything to stand out.

Carl Burkitt 2025

I tried writing a kids’ poem about a seal drinking a hot chocolate in my local Costa Coffee but the seal started crying. At first, he didn’t know why he was crying, but his friend said, ‘It’s no surprise, you’ve not been happy since the day she left’ and the seal howled. He slapped his flippers together and said he couldn’t put on a show for people anymore. I’m not sure if you’ve ever heard a seal admit to how the pressures of life get to them, but it made me regret every pound I’ve ever given to a zoo.

Carl Burkitt 2025

The lifeguard is off duty, so my mind sinks. I am not a shark. There’s a verruca plaster in the deep end talking to me. “Do you remember how you got an A in GCSE PE for life-saving but failed swimming?” There’s a dolphin in the slow lane enjoying her fake freedom. I wonder if Millsy still swims. He had to wait until the rest of us had reached a quarter of the way down the pool at Galas before diving in and winning. There’s a piranha in the fast lane. He bit me in the changing room last week when my psoriasis shampoo fell out of my bag. My spine is sea weed. I don’t wear goggles because I don’t want to see my legs kicking for no reason. I heard once that the trauma of nearly drowning can cause a stammer. I wonder if that’s true when pulled under by social situations. Oh, the lifeguard’s back. I am a shark.

Carl Burkitt 2025