Réka Nyitrai and Alan Peat

Initially lust is intense

A knock at the door wakes me up. The unannounced guest turns out to be an old pair of my boots; the ones that I sold a few years back. They look pretty battered. When I ask them why they have returned, this is their  nonchalant answer—a first love is never forgotten. 

two chairs—
sometimes a page turns
the comfortable silence

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About the Authors

Réka Nyitrai is a spell, a sparrow, a lioness’s tongue — a bird nest in a pool of dusk. She is the recipient of a Touchstone Distinguished Books Award for 2020 for her debut haiku volume While Dreaming Your Dreams (Valencia, Spain: Mono Ya Mono Books, 2020). Her prose poems have appeared in Otoliths, Unbroken Journal, Pithead Chapel, Heliosparrow Poetry Journal,  NOON: journal of the short poem, Obliterat Journal, and others. 

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.