portion of the artwork for Jari Thymian's poetry

My Unpainted Canvas
Jari Thymian

A grand piano made of thin crystal
sits in a clearing in a pine forest.
Hoar frost covers the dark green

branches and every piano wire.
Freezing fog moves on a slow
breath of something unseen.

One of my eyes, brow pierced
by a twisted paperclip, is suspended
from a branch over the keyboard.

Out of mist, origami gulls
soar, wings made of Beethoven
scores. Like a percussionist

waiting to strike a chime or triangle,
I can only enter the melody
line with a counterpoint of tears,

stone deaf. One lone bird flies
into the raised lid of the piano
as if into a window it couldn’t see,

lies stunned on the ground. My canon
of tears falls, freezes midair. I wait
for the bird’s faint heartbeat.


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FRiGG: A Magazine of Fiction and Poetry | Issue 31 | Winter 2011