Jennifer Campbell
That M.C. Escher Drawing
It’s called “Relativity” – not the image of the hand drawing the hand drawing. Staircases in all four directions, coupled with gray, thatched landings and doorways. This is a man’s mind. He watches you climb a ladder, holds out a candle to light the path, throws down a rope even, and when your feet touch ground, breathing begins to slow, a door quietly clicks in your face. A creature of optimism, you ask: If he didn’t slam the door, is it an invitation to pursue? Descend, look for another way in, come to the door where the man becomes a pronoun. It's me, he says on voicemail, confident in your automatic reply. In the center of the scene, there is only the climber with heart and purse slung over the shoulder. A creature of expectation, you call back right away, lead with the full name your mother yells from the bottom of the stairs.
Jennifer Campbell is a co-editor of Earth's Daughters, one of the longest-running feminist print journals, and an English professor outside of Buffalo, NY. Her poems have appeared in Slant, Slipstream, Caesura, Rockhurst Review, Blood Lotus, and Letterhead, and are forthcoming in Louisiana Literature and PRECIPICe. Her first full-length collection, Driving Straight Through, was published by FootHills in 2008.
