IN THE MORNING / HYPNAGOGIA ................................................................................................ROBYN CAMPBELL

In the Morning

Poem by Robyn Campbell

two bodies resting two bodies at rest, faces to the light, all internal movement like plants a floral type of narcissism

or, maybe they are not like plants they could be like fish faintly oiled, slick skin shining

you say you think death looks like life inverted it is a turning i say then that a poem inverted looks something like truth

laid bare, as we are

picked nearly clean marks left by the million little teeth that time attracts

Hypnagogia

Poem by Robyn Campbell

On her 63rd birthday, Annie Edson Taylor became the first person to survive a barrel ride over Niagara Falls. When asked, she later said, “I would sooner walk up to the mouth of a cannon, knowing it was going to blow me to pieces, than make another trip over the Fall."

In darkness, the descent. You hold tight, fists clenched and pray for a good swift end.

As a child you opened your eyes at night and trained yourself to see God, gave a face to the thing you loved most.

Is he here now in the water’s electric hum, in the prickling beneath your skin?

And then you feel the change. Something nameless is pulled out slowly from the middle of your chest; it’s like an exorcism. The care is gone, and the worry—that old need to make the future manifest turns to breath and is exhaled.

From far away, you hear it: “the woman is alive.”