The mornings begin
with birds or tea or in-jokes
between two people who made a promise.
The mornings begin
with a squint and a thumbnail-sized sun
sitting above a house stuffed with friends
made from ancient glitter and fuzziness.
The mornings begin.
The mornings begin
with curtains unsure how heavy they’ll be today.
The mornings begin
with a leafless tree. Dust. A toddler walks in.
The mornings begin.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

My health
couldn’t be bothered to come in today.
It made excuses about traffic and needing
to get its son to childcare and not being
able to find any breakfast and sweating
through every item of clothing it owns
during the death of the night
and I want to listen, to understand, to give it
space let it do what it needs and trust, hope,
it remembers all I have given it.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

The bins aren’t taking themselves out again.
The dirty plates haven’t learned how to roll
towards the sink and my socks have no legs.
The day is 72 hours long and my cells need
a large rocket to climb aboard.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

Today I clambered
up some steps holding my toddler
in one arm and a tote bag of vegetables
and an umbrella and a water bottle
and two second-hand books in the other.
You never know when your next fall
is planned for you. It wasn’t today,
when the world was in my arms,
but it could always be tomorrow
when I am in his.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

Tell it to do one,
think of a witty quip
like the New York detective
you have been watching all week.
Show it your teeth, use them
to growl and finally eat
a thick, toasted cheese sandwich.
Offer it a bite. After all,
you were raised to be polite.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

Bags-under-the-eye-grey,
skin with enough friction,
flesh soft like a Sunday.
The Legend. You sit, shaped
like a handgun or a thumbs
up in the middle of the room.
Sweat paints the walls, chest
bones are twice their weight,
cushions wrap themselves
around limbs like a gardener’s
hand lifting a fallen bird from the grass
behind a house from the past, the TV playing
cartoons, the air a roast dinner and the
whisper of your product name. The Legend.
You will never get called a sofa in this flat.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

The sun kissed a stranger.
The moon punched a balloon.
A crack between the wall and the doorframe
grew wide enough for a soul to fall in.
A Glaswegian parrot turned up.
The leaves over the road waved
goodbye to each other every morning.
Tarmac gave up.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

Yep.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

It’s 2am and his bed is sweat. Colin is
ex footballer Gary Neville’s dad,
Neville Neville. He is on a sport podcast,
chatting about the importance of hard work
over talent, recounting his days as a lorry driver,
how he would get up at 4am to drop off
furniture in Davenport so he could get back
to Manchester by 11am and volunteer
at the local cricket club, then pick his kids up
from school to take them to football
and netball club. He is convincing people
he came back to life to tell his children
he’s so proud of them. Meredith and Christina
ask Colin to scrub in and do the appendectomy
surgery for them. An emergency has come up
but they cannot tell him what. It’s 3am.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

He hasn’t scored for nearly six weeks,
his goal bonus sits in the coffers
of a club he can’t remember signing for.
He’s read a bit too much
about the side effects of heading a ball
and the lads on the wings just can’t
get it to his feet. There’s a good chance
his legs aren’t getting him to the box
as fast as they used to. His mind wanders.
When he pulls on the famous white shirt
he thinks about the gods that once wore it.
He looks up at the clouds when the whistle goes
and thinks he can hear them talking
about how they always pictured him in goal
with arms like that. His mind wanders.
He likes looking at the grass. His mind wanders.

© Carl Burkitt 2023