Biography

Jessica Harman

Jessica Harman has recently published poems in "Rosebud" and "The Bellevue Literary Review." Her poems are forthcoming in "Spillway," "Karamu," and "The South Carolina Review." An essay on poetic language (as having its source in both fire and water) was published in "The Iconoclast." Currently she is a freelance writer and visual artist. She has also worked as a researcher at Harvard Medical School, a video store clerk, and a contributing editor for "Matrix" magazine. Currently she is working on an essay about mirrors in poetry. She believes, like Jack Kerouac, that one should "Scribble secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages, for yr. own joy." She lives in the Boston area.

Schizophrenic

To you, nothing was fake-fake diamonds
were stardust from a supernova. A dandelion
from a lawn was pure gold that you picked

to put behind my ear, then you made it disappear
in a magic trick. You made me smile at the sun,
looking at it directly, said it was pure. At night, when the stars

appeared one by one outside my darkening
curtains, I wondered where you went-subway
stations where trains rattled soft moonbeams

of electric light into the bones. You sparked
something in me-the need to save the world,
and if that was possible, then maybe I could

save you from how the horizon sapped your energy,
like you said, cigarette in your mouth
making butterflies out of ghostly angel smoke. When I was older,

I walked under overpasses on my way home-I saw
your bed lift in dust and paper
cups scattered by wind. I felt city dust

brush my face and leave the springtime there,
when you thawed and rose from the dead. I pass
by mirrors, these days, and think I can cross your heart

in the reflection, by crossing my heart-my right
was always your left. I can cross the sea of light
in front of the mirror, and see the rippling.

You could always walk
on water, going into the blood red sunset, wearing
a black cowboy hat like a bad guy. But really,

I watched as you zigzagged through the rich section
of town, where we used to live-instead of home
there were stanzas of loneliness there for you,

starbursts of dark light, blossoms in alleys.
I picked you an urban bouquet along the way, gold honeysuckle
and happenstance bluebells-you understood

that they were really roses in essence, because they were meant to be red,
that every flower
is meant for the love of dawn, when you will rise with the new sun,

before it is ruined. The sound of the sun rises with the birds,
like the music that will fill the air
showing you that you were right-everything is easy, you just have to laugh,

knowing that you are kismet with luck, that you have seen God's blueprints,
felt him slip a jeweled crown on your head with each second
blossoming into a purer universe.

Jessica Harman