He struts out the door
wearing jeans tighter than his calf skin.
His glasses are thick, clean, expensive.
His quiff is a full roll of tissue paper,
his jumper a woollen cubicle door.
We meet in the corridor at the top of the pub.
I smile, he takes his phone out of his pocket
and keeps walking.
The freckles on the back of his neck
are Morse code for WHO CARES.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

He was born on a Valentine’s Day
back when there was only four TV channels.
His hair was a bouquet of roses
and his fingernails chocolates
he would one day nibble when stressed.
He only ever wore red.
He made cards for the things in his house:
Will you be my Valentine, rug?
Will you be my Valentine, spoon?
Will you be my Valentine, egg?
People called him Cupid, but he was real,
just ask the strangers he shot with a smile
when he realised they were looking his way.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

They’re in the pub,
chatting like everything is fine.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

We’re reading a book and a kite
is tangled in a tree.
A pig has decided to climb up
and save it. His trotters look unsteady
on the bark that’s bending
under his weight and it’s raining.
We’re startled by the noise
of an ambulance outside.
The windows show us grey clouds
and the flat is bending under the weight.
The pig has barely moved
but he’s trying.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

so he cleaned the kitchen cupboards –
including the handles – with a fluffy pink wipe,
and scrubbed the oven door for twenty minutes
until the glass turned from dark brown
to light brown. He put a wash on.
He tidied up toy trucks and trains.
He wrote poems without a pen to let the words
disappear.
Being busy will help the passing of time.
He trimmed his beard, stared at the mirror.
He popped the blackheads on his nose
long enough to let a few scars show.
Men will often turn to a project
to help assuage the feelings.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

He enjoys making carparks out of vehicles,
lining up pigs like a Post Office queue.
He likes Weetabix, then Shreddies, then
Cornflakes, then Rice Pops in his bowl.
He needs milk with a red tractor on the label.
He needs his farm to live on his desk.
He needs popcorn during football and an orange
during the Gruffalo. He clumps yellow magnets
together and makes snakes out of the red,
purple, green, and blue. He needs order,
the way the middle follows the beginning
and comes before an end.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

She’s sweeping the path
at the front of her house,
cheeks not quite as pink as her fleece.
Leaves sit on top of one another
like worries
she thought had gone last year.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

There was a man in the café who looked
like a bald Rick Astley. The sky was the colour
of my red jacket earlier. Mini Eggs are £1.25
this year. The pub’s book club has chosen
Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five.
It turns out the Hollies sang the song
I like in that montage in Remember the Titans
when the team go on a winning streak
and become friends. I saw a dog
that looked like a cat. Burts Crisps do
a surf and turf flavour. Dougie’s still alive.
I found my green hat. A woman I met
with your name paid £2.45 for one red pepper
from the grocer’s, she has no idea why.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

She’s walking
like she’s five minutes late for a meeting.
Every six or seven seconds, the knobbly bits
on the insides of her ankles click together
as if starting a fire. The tarmac is an airport
travelator. The moon hasn’t realised
it is morning. I hope it knows it won’t be paid
for this overtime. The woman has her phone
in her hand, her fingers thinking of an excuse
before dialling a number. A pigeon appears
on the path in front of her. It’s having
the kind of day that doesn’t need wings.
The pigeon whistles a crumb into existence
and waddles casually towards it. The woman stops.
She’s watching it be slow. 

© Carl Burkitt 2023

It seems like she enjoyed pouring me
that pint. The bubbles giggled their way
out of the tap and her shoulders laughed
at my southern accent. Certainly, Sir,
she said when I asked for dry roasted peanuts
and I wondered whose face I was
wearing. The young man with biceps
on his triceps smiled the length of the bar
and the woman curtseyed
thinking she was in my peripheral vision.
The pub was my secondary school playground
and I had a choice: wear loneliness as a crown
or bow, give a royal wave, keep my chin up. 

© Carl Burkitt 2023