The toddler chattering
at the other end of the café does not live
with me but the noise hits me
like an ice cream truck in winter
or an airport speaker system announcing
my gate is open when my fry up has not even
arrived at my breakfast table. I am alert
and my teeth want to answer her about
why the windows are made of glass
and why muffins are called muffins
and if the sky is ever yellow
and if tarantulas can juggle
and why no one in the cafe is talking
but the toddler chattering
at the other end of the café does not live
with me.

Carl Burkitt 2024

The service station is called Truck Haven
so all the trucks are getting massages
from masseuse trucks and eating truck grapes
without even using their truck hands.
A few of the trucks are wearing truck robes
and soft looking truck slippers on their truck wheels.
I can see one truck lying on its truck back
listening to truck whale sounds
while another truck is kissing its truck forehead.
The trucks look safe. They are not talking
about the weather or the weekend
or how work is going or how their back hurts
because this is Truck Haven.

Carl Burkitt 2024

The adverts have finished in the cinema
and the trailers have started.
Skin on strangers’ spines tightens in fear
as conversations quieten but do not stop.
The words What if they never stop
and I’m the one who has to ask them to stop
crawl slowly up soft drink straws.
The trailers have finished and the film has started.
Skeletons under strangers’ muscles melt
as conversations quieten but do not stop.
The realisation they will not enjoy the film
sticks in their teeth like popcorn kernels.
If you don’t shut up I will scream for one hour
says an anti-hero holding pick and mix.
Conversations stop. Bum cheeks on strangers’
bodies clap. Quietly.

Carl Burkitt 2024

so I change the subject
and talk about the way things are fine
and what holidays we have planned
and how the weather’s behaving
and I can hear the producer in my hear
relax, high-five his colleagues,
not even listen to what I’m coming up with.

Carl Burkitt 2024

He’s holding his two-litre bottle of Fanta
like it’s a baby, lying safely in his arms,
but it’s not his baby – it’s a two-litre bottle of Fanta.
He’s walking towards me on the high street,
smiling, and I’m smiling at him and his baby,
but it’s not his baby – it’s a two-litre bottle of Fanta.
I’m thinking about the soft skin on my son’s tricep
and how this man soothes plastic to sleep at night
but it’s not his baby – it’s a two-litre bottle of Fanta
and my back is a thousand years old, I cannot
wake up without thinking something has died
or we’re going to be late for pre-school
or this power I have over someone else’s
developing brain and not my own
but it’s not his baby – it’s a two-litre bottle of Fanta.

Carl Burkitt 2024

after David Attree

The word is ‘gather’ so I think about rakes
and dad arms and leaves pulled together
by a gentle strength with their brothers
and sisters and cousins to listen to tea-slurps,
smell cheap sausages on emergency BBQs,
watch the sun shine on uncle foreheads,
hear the sound of auntie jewellery jingle on wrists.
There’s a new word. I think it’s ‘home’
but it may have been ‘hope’ or ‘how’
as in, ‘How was it that long ago?’
or ‘How do we go back and ask how he’s doing?’

Carl Burkitt 2024

I can’t drive.
Even though I’m 37 years old,
whenever I see blokes my age beeping
the button of their car keys or climbing
into the driver’s seat or rearranging the angle
of their wing mirrors, I can’t help thinking
they’re too young to be allowed such responsibility.
I watch them
hoping they will turn round and insult my skinny
legs, call me ‘snappy’ because of my biscuit bones
and tendency to jump down someone’s throat
in the school canteen when they’re just joking.
I don’t care that they’re with their wife
or two toddlers or on their way to work,
I want them to sit next to me in German class,
to use their shoes for goalposts, to not die
down a country lane.

Carl Burkitt 2024

You mispronounce
the name of a game
and I disappear
deep
into the Earth of my brain
that exists to point out
errors and will not
die with the worms.

Carl Burkitt 2024

Man and Labrador
walking slowly down the street.
One foot. Two paws.
One foot. Two paws.
A simple pattern unrehearsed.
They’re not talking to each other
in that way humans and animals
don’t talk to each other that much
or hungover best mates
having spent the evening before
using up every in-joke carved
out of a mountain friendships,
their personalities exhausted,
warm, relaxed. One of them
does a poo on the pavement.

Carl Burkitt 2024

I feel like the street with a dental surgery
next to a chocolate shop should feature
in some kind of poem looking at the pain
of human decision or lack of accountability
or quick fix culture or decline of willpower
or the importance of arms around shoulders
and sticking beside the people you meet
or feeling safe enough to just have fun
or capitalism or greed or high street decline
or irony or coincidental town planning
or something, anything, surely, who cares.

Carl Burkitt 2024