I turned up to lunch wearing my frog’s leg jeans.
They didn’t quite fit around the ankles
but they matched my lily pad hat.
I started chatting to the windows,
cracking jokes to the ice tray in the freezer.
I can’t speak French but that didn’t stop me
greeting other guests in it. I kissed the kettle
as it boiled the water for the gravy and
gave names to every single blade of grass
in the back garden. The room was freezing cold,
so I stripped down to my sandpaper boxers
and sang Lady In Red down a carrot microphone.
I gave birth to a pig.
I shaved one of my arms.
I lost to the moon at snooker.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

The dust outline in my wallet
around the shadow of my misplaced
provisional driver’s license asked,
Why aren’t we outside queuing in the rain?
The creak in my left hip yelled,
Ask if they have any Murray Mints out the back.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

A woman I used to work with walked past my flat today.
The last time we spoke I lived miles away.
Her strides were purposeful
but her shoulders looked relaxed.
She had no idea I was in my too-small dining chair
looking out the window through the purple tree.
She had no idea my bathroom has a little bin
stuffed with poo-filled nappies.
She had no idea I’ve invented songs for the bath.
She had no idea I was eating fried eggs.
She had no idea this morning was the first time
in a year my fingers wanted to hurt my skin.
She had no idea I didn’t let them because of a hand
on my shoulder asking me to be kind to myself.
She had no idea I live with a magician.
She had no idea I really liked her purple running shoes.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

You and your best friend George Clooney
are sat in the Pret by Vauxhall station
enjoying a coffee. You have a decaf latte,
George has a flat white.
He asks you how your morning was
and you start to tell him all about getting up early
to feed our son after a difficult night but
George manages to nervously bring the
conversation
round to ER and how Ocean’s Twelve gets a bad rap.
You smile in that way that makes the sun rise
and George feels safe to complain about his bad back.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

I yawned in your face
and you didn’t yawn back
in that contagious way
the rest of the population would,
so I spent the evening
thinking you were unique
or broken
or both
and I didn’t know
which one I preferred.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

I can’t swing a golf club
without thinking about how long my arms are.
I feel like cooked spaghetti caught in a hurricane.
I don’t own coats because my wrists
make me look like someone
who doesn’t know how to buy a coat.
When I go swimming I worry my floppy bones
will make people think I am drowning
and they will come to save me
and someone who is actually drowning will die.
So I don’t go swimming.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

Enjoy! said the delivery man,
handing me my portion of chips.
You too! I replied,
closing my door and melting
red into the flat’s welcome mat.
A part of my brain meant it though.
I hoped he got back on his moped
and smiled to the tip tap of rain
across his brightly coloured helmet
and didn’t explode a thousand lives
with a wrong turn.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

After Selima Hill

I want to be a seat in a cinema. Any cinema.
It doesn’t need to be an independent cinema
showing films I pretend to understand. It can be
a cinema people overpaid to be in to hear stories
they will immediately forget. I want to be a seat
in a cinema and feel greasy fingers down my arms.
I want consensual blowjobs to happen on me.
I want chewing gum stuck to my back.
I want a stoic dad to sit on me and laugh until
I break with him. I want to be a seat in a cinema
that swallows lost popcorn. I want to creak open
and shut. I want to be nailed to the floor and
forced to be in a crowd and feel what they feel.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

The pier was packed with whispering ghosts.
Empty teacups span, desperate for milk and sugar.
Rock shops shut their doors,
disappointment spiralled through their innards.
Wet dogs kept themselves to themselves and vegan
restaurants opened Wednesday to Sunday.
Salt sprinkled on chips like dandruff on my shoulders.
Waves stretched up to rain clouds,
bending back like your nine-week-old eyelids
swallowing the ocean for the first time.

© Carl Burkitt 2020