Slip

What Cixous has to say about jouissance makes sense
in the flash of skin, your legs when your toes scrape

the full moon, a whole ocean pulling at my tongue. But
outside of thighs I have nothing to say. Impossible

to concentrate on the reading. When you caress your pen
I feel your fingers on my thigh and when I moan finally,

it’s not because the presentation has moved me.
What do I know of Margaret Cavendish? That she did not

have the pleasure of your mouth on the inside of her elbow.
And I won’t disagree that women invented the novel since

poems may not be large enough to contain them. When
you raise your hand to move a curl from your mouth I cannot

contain my own.