I think I fancy the guy behind the bar.
The top button on his brown checked shirt
sits neatly in front of a voice box
that is asking questions his ears want
the answers to. I don’t think he likes football.
The game is on a TV behind him
and he hasn’t turned around once
to check the score or moan
that someone more talented than him
doesn’t know what he’s doing. I tell him
I have a son and he wonders what it’s like
to guide a brain through life. I tell him
it’s difficult, especially teaching him
not to confuse a stranger being polite
with absolute trust. 

© Carl Burkitt 2023

They’re slowly and systematically
picking out each other’s flaws
like snipers aiming to kill.
It’s been going on for 25 minutes
and everyone in the pub is laughing.
Their wrinkles have turned red.
Their tongues are nine pints.
They’re sat so closely to one another
on their greasy, brown leather booth
they haven’t noticed their hands are touching.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

The man with illustration-style tattoos
on his inner arm and a skin-tight woolly hat
on his head runs a spicy sauce company.
He knows how to mix jalapeños with pineapples
and habaneros with lime and mongos.
The guy standing next to him runs a curry business
that makes the tastiest onion bhajis.
I’m in front of both of them today at a food market
trying the free taster they just gave me
of their homemade Onion Bhaji Hot Sauce
We basically liquidised his onion bhajis
with a few of my chilli peppers,
says the tattooed man. It tastes like a friendship
whizzed up in a blender. I’m holding my son
wondering how to teach him to let people in.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

The people I trust are letting rubber gloved-fingers
in their mouths. We do not know this person.
They want me to go next but I can’t
stop thinking about the waiting room
and how it has everything I’ve ever wanted:
17 fake leather chairs to count, a comments
and suggestion box shaped like a classic
red post box to point at, a wall-sized
photograph of Manchester’s landscape
sort of like the sky out of our flat window,
a plastic bin just shorter than me.
The tall man who carried me up the stairs
is saying words like Filling and Extractions
and I have a sticker with a pig on it.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

and on days like yesterday
it is clearly personal. They don’t want my house
to have poached eggs in the week
and the guy behind the CCTV monitor,
the one who used to smile
when we walked into the shop,
enjoys watching me tut and gently throw
my hands in the air as the shelves I once trusted
now have bagels or multipack crisps on offer.
Everyone else knows where they’re going.
Their clean trainers and jeans fly like the crow
and collect their packs of twelve like it’s easy
and head to the frozen food or vegetables.
They talk to each other. They joke about
weekend plans and roast dinners
and I just want eggs. Half a dozen will do.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

A box of fried chicken is next to the jelly babies.
There is no way of knowing how we got here,
but you will not accept that as an answer.
And neither should you. Let’s go for a walk,
past the peanuts, the shower gel, the eggs,
the sliced bread, the row of illustrated books
and find the pieces of a story we can put together
any way we like.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

Of course you are,
in your Gruffalo pyjamas
with your soft rabbit
and toy car transporter
in the other room
sending air emails
with fingers desperate
to discover something new.
Have a good day,
don’t forget to come back
and tell us how
thing could be different.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

Of course you are,
sneaking up on us,
sliding across the living room floor
talking about lizards and frogs,
swallowing lunch in one go,
testing out your venom,
wrapping yourself around my chest
tight enough to suck out my air
and remind me to keep going.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

I want to strangle whoever invented manners
and scream your name across the aisles
of vegetarian sausages, plain bagels, Marmite,
cloudy lemonade, hash browns, Marvellous Creations,
Pringles, eggs, crumpets, hollandaise sauce,
and I want to scream it as loudly as my chest did
when you introduced yourself back then.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

Of course you are,
borrowing deep
into a grubby chest
scooping a hole
where it’s needed.

© Carl Burkitt 2023