Russell Crowe is at Euston station
struggling to hear the Tannoy announcement
that all the trains between Watford
and Milton Keynes have been cancelled
for the next three hours. He’s fuming
at Upper Crust and Burger King and his watch
and can just about smell the pizza
he was planning to have with his family
when he got home.

Carl Burkitt 2023

She’s writing her Christmas cards
on the fold-out table on the back of a train seat.
The pile she’s finished is on the 7am chair
next to her: pale white, bolt upright, thick
as a door stop. Her hair is familiar.
She’s wearing the navy blue and grey floral dress
my therapist used to wear and she’s just written
the word MUMMY on a freshly opened envelope.

Carl Burkitt 2023

he says to his mates
wearing Santa hats with a charity logo
embroidered on the white bit.
They clink their seven pints of stout
together and start talking about the state
of Manchester United Football Club.

Carl Burkitt 2023

It’s midnight.
The men with foreheads
like thumb knuckles are singing
and the rest of the train is
waiting for violence. It comes
10 minutes later
in the shape of miss-hit notes
in the chorus of Jingle Bells.

Carl Burkitt 2023

The bloke in the pub says
he likes watching snooker
because the ever changing
formation of the table
reminds him of the struggle
he and his wife had deciding
where the baubles should go
on their Christmas tree until
the year she died.

Carl Burkitt 2023

If I’m walking
and I start thinking
about how I don’t need to think
to make my legs start walking,
I stop walking.

Carl Burkitt 2023

He’s a sheep
in the pre-school nativity sitting with
his hind legs crossed on a gym class floor mat.
His eyes are focused.
His hips are dancing.
His woolly back is a long sleeve T-shirt
clinging to his chest like song lyrics
to a three-year-old brain.
The hall is a time machine for the adults:
a chance to see a small face like theirs stuck
to a body willing to run into an unknown field
and see how far it can stretch.

Carl Burkitt 2023

That reindeer serving sandwiches
in the cafe is not a real reindeer.
It’s just a man dressed as a reindeer.
I can tell because it doesn’t have four legs
and reindeers don’t have hands to hold trays.
It’s not a real reindeer. Reindeers work with Santa.
It’s just a man delivering sandwiches
while dressed as a reindeer
and it’s very important I understand
what is real and what is not
because I am still developing the ability to trust
and that man is not a real reindeer.

Carl Burkitt 2023

A reindeer is serving sandwiches
in the cafe. He is standing on his back legs,
balancing the tray of lunches on his front hooves.
He’s not talking to the customers
because he is a reindeer. His name badge says
Joe and his red nose looks as plastic as the antlers
on his head and the smile on his face.

Carl Burkitt 2023