Chinese Painter at the Portland Waterfront – a poem by Heidi Naylor

Chinese Painter at the Portland Waterfront

Bent, bundled against damp and cold
Knit hat pulled low past a hoodie
Coat atop that, at his elbow an old

yellow lamp, and inkpots, for outline and fill.
Half-gloved grasp on his tiny black, tooth-marked
brush, with its single sprouted queued tendril

now quickswept in expert flourish, to whisker 
his lobster, then shade claws of green
to ochre and mustard, now glazed in a blister 

of pink. A fold of rust next, charcoal, ash, scrim of waterwash
and lift the basket, break it through a path of honeyed moonlight 
into a junkboat, beneath which silver schools of fish flash 

westward toward the Lunar Year
our shuffling crowd has long, so long forgotten is here.

 

Heidi Naylor is from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and made her way to Idaho in 1990. Her story collection, Revolver, was published by BCC Press in 2018. She’s a two-time Pushcart Prize and Best New American Voices nominee and received a fellowship from the Idaho Commission on the Arts. She loves Idaho trails and her family, including two little granddaughters. Find her at heidinaylor.net.