Alan Peat

the lovely April of her prime

He likes to say this because it makes her laugh—between us we make one decent human being.

Her eyes are shot; his ears are done for. Sometimes he pinches the skin on the back of his hand and it stands there in a little hillock. He looks up and tells me—that’s when you know you are old.

He has a saxophone. It lives under the bed now. She has knitting needles that no longer click.

I watch from the window. They are walking hand in hand down the hill to their bench in the sun.

blue distant mountains—
nothing can blemish
the comfortable silence

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Note: Title is from Shakespeare’s Sonnet 2:

. . .Thou art thy mother’s glass, and she in thee
Calls back the lovely April of her prime. . .

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About the Author

Alan Peat is a UK-based poet and author. His work has featured in Frogpond, Mayfly, Heliosparrow, The Heron’s Nest, Presence, Hedgerow, and Blithe Spirit, among others. He was runner-up in the 2021 British Haiku Society’s Ken and Norah Jones Haibun Award and joint third-place winner in the 2022 Time Haiku ekphrastic haibun contest.