Hypnagogia
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.”
Born and raised in Eastern Pennsylvania, Robyn Campbell has been writing since before she can remember. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Apiary, Stirring, and 1932 Quarterly, among others. Her time is split between writing, playing drums, fleeing to the mountains, and editing Semiperfect Press. She lives and works in Philadelphia.