and my legs are chaotic spandex.
You pick me up by my torso
with the fingers of a wild referee.
Daft eyes can’t help me now.
It’s time to show the future how to wrestle,
how to follow the passion that keeps you
up at night. Come on then Dad,
you say. Let’s see what you’re made of.

© Carl Burkitt 2022

but he didn’t take a spoon.
The only way to get through the day
is to think about him
walking in the rain
scooping raspberry Onken into his mouth
with his Tommy Hilfiger spectacles.

© Carl Burkitt 2022

The moon is an exhausted firework
struggling to peel the duvet off
its skin every night to watch
people drinking hot chocolates
with lips desperate to talk
about the things they’ve done
and think, kids in wellies made
from the promise they can be
whatever they like. The bonfire is
too far away for the moon to feel
the warmth or hear the cackle of life.
The moon is too tired to explode.

© Carl Burkitt 2022

I never get
wrong number phone calls anymore.
Do people only call the people
they were intending to call now?
Is there a new generation
of confident button typers?
Or are they still out there,
trying to reach the wrong people
for the chance to say I’m sorry
to someone who’s really listening?

© Carl Burkitt 2022

The man on the pub’s TV is yelling about
every single goal Gareth Bale has ever scored.
His commentary partner is calling him a freak,
a legend. Dragons are roaring in the crowd.
There’s a circle of vomit, about the size of
a digestive biscuit, sitting on the seat next to me.
I haven’t noticed it for 81 minutes.

© Carl Burkitt 2022

pulling a thorn out of his gums.
There is a lion in the quiet carriage
tap dancing with firework shoes.
There is a lion in the quiet carriage
playing drums with a machine gun,
blow drying his hair with a pneumatic drill,
doing karaoke with a foghorn.
There is a lion in the quiet carriage
throwing every plate that’s ever been made
into a cement mixer made of glass.
There is a lion in the quiet carriage
who needs a new set of headphones.

© Carl Burkitt 2022

You have eyes
for snacks that make you
ready to digest fear.

© Carl Burkitt 2022

He is sitting alone
on a red chilli leather sofa
folding freshly printed menus
in the restaurant he owns.
He is wearing a white shirt
pressed as neatly as the napkins.
It is 8.30am, his hair is laminated
back with wet look gel. His chest
is the front door, desperate to open
and let you in.

© Carl Burkitt 2022

The first driver has a son who was born
with three teeth in his mouth. The midwife said
she had never seen that before.
His other son is the type of guy
who knows when to leave a party
and is content playing alone.
He thinks I’ll like it at the health centre
because the people are nice and they
sorted his daughter’s in-growing toenail
with local anaesthetic and some kind of acid.
He wanted to know how long I’ve lived
in this area, if I have a network around
me, if I get the chance to enjoy hobbies.
The second driver drove us silently
for 30 minutes until the shop was visible.
This Waitrose better have a toilet. It does.

© Carl Burkitt 2022

There’s a fluorescent green running coat
in a drawer with wheels under my bed.
I slide it on when my feet need to run
a day into a night. It was given
to me by cremated hands and fits
like a glove I never wanted to wear.
My son shouts Green coat when it’s on,
I look like the lime in secret a gin and tonic.
I hate it. I wish it was still in Newcastle
jogging slower than you would imagine
next to a Labrador who will never know
what happened. I still wear it though,
and I always will, because without death
I would never remember to throw my body
into an afternoon.

© Carl Burkitt 2022