Fallout

               to those who took offense at my “women’s poem”
               being posted outside the English Department

I’m too young and pretty

to know how to spell “misogynist.”
If I can write about a female

masturbating, I must be

having kinky sex. Lots of it.
Teenagers, even middle-aged

male colleagues, must be sheltered

from such a racy tongue. How dare I

describe a woman being deflowered

as fingers plunge below the waist?

Methinks thou dost protest too much.

You want to shell a string

of creamy pearls around my neck, but

I will fight off the attack from the air.

And you don’t know hot

it makes me to press that red

button, target your small mind

and scorch a hole in polite earth.

I’d better not die tragically,

hate to be remembered

with my head between my knees,

under a desk, after the detonation

of a red dress. I better not light

the “F” word. Feminist.

                                                         Jennifer Campbell