Alan Peat
After Lunch
… I am sitting on a bench, in the middle of The Eighteenth Century, watching you. Your mother has just poured a coffee. Still holding the pot, she steadies your saucer with her free hand. As you dip broken bread in your milky drink I scan the room. All my old friends are hanging together – three-quarter; kit-cat; head and shoulders. Most I’ve known since I was a boy but you, with paper curlers in your hair, are new. Windows reflected in a porcelain belly. A blue dress reflected in a black lacquer tray.
whistling girl turning a corner I finish her tune
Note: This is an ekphrastic haibun based on Etienne Liotard’s The Lavergne Family Breakfast (1754), which is in the main collection of The National Gallery in London. Click here to view the painting and learn more.
About the Author
Alan Peat is a UK-based poet and author. He was runner-up in the 2021 British Haiku Society’s Ken and Norah Jones Haibun Award and in 2022 won a Touchstone Award for Individual Haibun. His book of collaborative ekphrastic haibun with Réka Nytrai, Barking at the Coming Rain (Alba Publishing, 2023), is available by e-mailing alanpeat@icloud.com.
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