[Tess Gallagher's poems in Stepping Outside] are subtle; one thinks, somehow, of underground passages that recurve on themselves, so that the adventurer is expelled at the exact spot he entered the maze, retaining the conviction of hidden treasure; or, of the accomplished stripper, who has vanished from the stage by the time the yokels realize that it is her sequined G-string that is spinning toward them through the smoky air. You will notice that in both these analogies the baffled reader is represented as male, and I suspect that if Tess's poems ever do give themselves up fully it will only be to a few other women. There is a defiance toward men that is usually gentle but always meant: not a rock bottom but the bottom of a net—one is not hurt but all the same stopped, not allowed…. But it would be unfair to say...