Issue 25 | Fall 2021

marble chunk

Shin Yu Pai

it rested in a parking lot in North Seattle

the unhewn hunk of quarried stone touched

sheets of rain, stood up to windchill

while stored outdoors, absorbing

the elements, for nearly a month

I passed the uncarved block each day

on my morning run, it rarely strayed

from its place atop a wooden palate

except that time the stoneworker shoved

it there beneath the eaves of his building,

yellow nylon straps still binding it, then

one day it was gone; some days I slowed

down to talk to it like a potter coaxing

clay, trying to find the grain, staring at

its character, black veins, silver flecks

before cut and polished to make

a master vanity in West Queen Anne

About the Author

Shin Yu Pai is a poet, essayist, and visual artist. She is the author of several books of poetry, including Virga (Empty Bowl, 2021), Ensō (Entre Ríos Books, 2020), Sightings (1913 Press, 2007), Aux Arcs (La Alameda, 2013), Adamantine (White Pine, 2010), and Equivalence (La Alameda, 2003). She served as the fourth poet laureate of the city of Redmond from 2015 to 2017 and has been an artist in residence for the Seattle Art Museum and Pacific Science Center. Her poetry films have screened at the Zebra Poetry Festival and the Northwest Film Forum. Her personal essays have appeared in Zocalo Public Square, Tricycle, Atlas Obscura, Seattle Met, CityArts, and YES! Magazine. She lives and works in the Pacific Northwest where she serves as program director for Town Hall.