The bird-faced girl, when very young, was stolen by seamen. In a dress of white feathers she is pinned down on something that looks like a porcelain platter. Her captors are stood all about her, eager to hear, even from a distance, the beat of her heart. They believe that by listening to her blood pump they will remember what it was like when they too had wings.

alone in a blizzard
the penguin’s egg
cooling

Alan Peat & Réka Nyitrai

An ekphrastic haibun based on Eileen Agar’s painting ‘The Lotus Eater’ (1939)