Jari Thymian
Two Poems
Envy’s Lane
My water turns mossy dark, viscous. A woman wearing a Speedo slides through sparkling blue as if she learned from sharks, three laps to my every two. Arms stretch, grind to my try harder mantra, then flail. My furious legs struggle to kick failure out of the water. I am reduced by the tug on my strength – Envy entered my lane. She passes me again and again with her fluid stroke. I know her green speed, her seductive sisters who crowd my lane, who never let me swim alone.
Souls and Stones Move at the Speed of Erosion
after The Traveler, cassein under oil glazes on gesso panel, by Phyllis Hutchinson Montrose, 1989-90
Across sand dunes, a white boat sails toward a pond it will never reach. The lone passenger, a red rock, sits in the boat inches from water. And homeless near a thousand homes I stood, and near a thousand tables pined and wanted food, wrote Wordsworth. A friend once told about a meal while traveling in Pakistan. She was famished but had no boiled water to wash her hands, so politely refused, afraid of getting sick in a foreign country. Turmeric and ginger chicken, saffron rice, yogurt, almonds, chapatis and new friends seated on the rug near her. Just a few weeks after she translated the aromas, re-lived the longing, she died alone, late one night in a car crash in Minneapolis, the City of Lakes. Sometimes water moves toward the boat.
Jari Thymian’s poetry has appeared in Ekphrasis, The Christian Science Monitor, The Pedestal Magazine, Bijou Poetry Review, Broadsided Press, Alehouse, Margie Review, and Chicken Pinata. Her chapbook titled The Meaning of Barns was published by Finishing Line Press in 2007. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
