Feminist Literary Theory Lecture
Theodora Foster
and things are being fed
into our young heads
like paper into a printer;
your words are golden,
roasted, dripping with fat.
We salivate; we want to
lick them off the floor. I
want to cover my body with
them, to roll around like a
muddy dog. I imagine
they feel like Vaseline,
a sticky, glutinous
layer that makes me
slippery like an eel;
I slip through your
hands, fingers, and I
know your nails want
to scratch me but I fall,
Splash! Back into the water.
I swim to meet my eel
friends, and we read
famous eel philosophy and
talk and laugh and tangle
ourselves in seaweed.
I am stuck; climbed too
high; the sun tried to catch
me in its net, I flew too close;
shiny green things
bind me fast, I struggle
moving my body
like a ripple of water.
I can do nothing but listen
in plasticity, in multiplicity,
watching for your Freudian slip.