Elegy for a Strip-Mall Restaurant by Jaeyun Yoo

June 14, 2022
Poem title: Elegy for a Strip-Mall Restaurant Poet name: Jaeyun Yoo Poem: an old man bends over the stock pot as if it is a deep lake a greying woman folds napkins flags of worn white my last order, was it large beef noodle soup? rain stains the boarded storefront kitchen hidden like marrow how are you doing? did you weather the virus the weary economy strangers spitting, shoving I’d love to go back to last February leave roses beside the dusty fake orchids drop twenty in the tip jar gaping like a hungry fish End of poem. Credits and Bio: Copyright © Jaeyun Yoo Jaeyun Yoo is a Korean-Canadian poet and psychiatrist whose works have been published in The /tƐmz/ Review, Prairie Fire, Grain, Contemporary Verse 2, EVENT and Ricepaper. She is a student at The Writer’s Studio at SFU. She is a member of the poetry collective Harbour Centre 5, which published a collaborative chapbook, Brine, in 2022. @jaeyunwrites on Twitter.