What if you’re the guy who’s supposed to discover
a hidden fruit on a far away island
containing a super vitamin that helps
human beings live for 200 years
but I make us late for the 93 bus
that would take us to the crumbling library
for a Saturday story time session
with a too jolly to be real 30-year-old poet
and you get bored of his obvious rhymes
so you slink off to shyly stare at the dusty
shelves of travel books and bump into a friendly
former geography teacher called Jean
who recommends reading the dark red one
that sparks a fire in you I never saw
all because I just couldn’t resist that extra
slice of raspberry jam on toast before we left.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

When you were a poppy seed then a lentil
then a peanut then a grape then a fig
then a hamster then an apple then a banana
then a melon then a puppy then a rabbit,
who knew you would become
a file name on our laptop
stuffed with documents you cannot see.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

When I run out of answers
I look at the skin around my hands.
I study the swirling contours
like unfamiliar lines on a tourist map
and follow the shadow of vein rivers
in the disgusting translucent patches.
I feel sick at the thought
of how many things they’ve touched
until I remember they’ve fixed
as many things they’ve broken
and get to hold the thin limbs of a creature
who will show me what’s what.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

The words trickled into my inbox
with a sinister creeping wetness.
As the water submerged my ankles
I realised I’ve never seen a zebra up close
or held a trombone or bought a seesaw.
My leg hairs floated to the idea
I’ll probably only watch Godfather once or
twice more and read less than a thousand
books and have a different fringe each year.
Sitting in drenched clothes I made peace
with the fact I’ll never be able look
at a taut rope tying a canal boat to a dead weight
concrete bollard or a rustic wooden beam in a
Spanish villa on Place in the Sun: Winter Sun
without drowning in the knowledge
time runs out.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

You’re sat on my lap
and a man with leather tight skin
has a shotgun in the mouth
of a man with chin stubble.
You don’t even flinch.
Your limbs relax
into the soft of my stomach
as your bullet eyes shoot
across the eight inches they can see,
stealing all my oxygen.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

Untouched bubble wrap begging to be popped,
the sun refusing to go down on the day,
your name in lights across a palm-sized screen,
a gap for a bum on the chipped window sill,
unusually forced conversation, silence,
the news, freezing cold magnolia walls, silence,
broken white blinds, a deflated football,
one beige curtain peppered with bullet holes,
a birds eye view of my dangling feet,
a discarded chicken wing shaped like a man,
seven empty pint-glasses lined up like headstones,
a carpet made from the quicksand
of unasked questions and a goodbye.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

A pint for your birthday
will be swallowed without question.
But this year I will bathe my baby before bed.
As I let the water wash over 4-week-old fingers
I will imagine who he will sit with on a school bus.
I will imagine who will copy his German homework.
I will imagine him being a below average goalkeeper.
I will imagine him asking me to learn to ride a moped.
I will imagine him all over the local news
and the two grey hairs in my beard will be a sad man
standing behind a plinth reading memories.
Tonight your dad will set off fireworks at home
while I grab a dry towel and get used to now sharing
more in common with him than I did with you.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

I have never lied to anyone
as much as I lie to my barber.
It’s usually things like Not much,
when he asks what plans I have that day
or No, I’m fine actually,
when he asks if I would like a drink.
Once, when he said he was thinking
of getting into yoga, I said
I’ll text you the place nearby I used to go,
despite never doing yoga and not having his number.
And when he asked if I believed in God, I said
Not one entity, I’m more of an energy kind of guy,
despite not understanding what I was saying.
Today when he asked how I was, I said
Not bad, despite being on top of the world.
And then there was the time I made up the names
of hair products I’ve tried. I think I said
something like Hope, For Men.

© Carl Burkitt 2020