Over and over again.
Over and over again.
We’ve done it.
We’ve done it.
Over and over again.
We’ve done it.
Over and over again.
It’s not getting easier.
But we’ve done it.
Over and over again.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

not understanding your skin
or the way you don’t like cold porridge
or the dog that’s too loud
or the eggs that don’t match
or the taste of banana
or how the high chair is not high enough
I’m eating at a steakhouse menu
wondering how many cows
didn’t like standing on cold metal.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

He sits on the play mat,
centre stage,
pointing at the audience of crumbs
and floorboard eyes
and stained cushions
and the roof of a secondhand furniture shop
and the TV remote under the plastic snail,
spitting out the sounds
of a person inventing language.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

The world is a terrifying place
when Huw Edwards is on mute.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

I guess it’s up to you
in life
whether or not
you have a sense of humour.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

matching hats,
until you discover
your head is a universe
I’ll never keep up with.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

It hangs in our kitchen,
faded pencil, resting
in a frame with hinges that sigh
for a time of school visits
from Gods with armbands,
before email sign offs
and unattainable dreams.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

and there’s a Kellogg’s logo on our trees
and the River Thames is Coca Cola
and Cheddar Gorge is made of LEGO
and Scafell Pike is an Apple product
and Google is the bottom of the North Sea
and on and on and on.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

During every recording
of Match of the Day Top 10,
Alan Shearer holds a pen.
He never chews it.
He doesn’t point it at anyone.
He doesn’t even fiddle with it nervously.
It’s just there, in the hand
he used to raise to the sky
when he scored a goal,
making his fingers feel useful.
It’s been four months since I’ve had a job.
I kicked a concrete step yesterday
with no shoes on. My little toe erupted
like St. James’ Park
after an unstoppable header.
I felt awake.

© Carl Burkitt 2021