Freud’s Perverse Polymorph (Bulgarian Child Eating a Rat), 1939
Salvador Dali


Oh Rats

Her future riddled
by a clean white bib
stained before she left the crib.
A long gestation
the artists creation,
unclothed before a cheering crowd.
What a surprise left to a promised prince.
Will he still want her
after she swallows the rat
after the biter taste
saturates her pretty pink tongue,
hairs of rodent
clenched tight her mouth.


She's cute as a kitten
with her first catch,
his limp body
might have made a steady steed,
until he tried to run, so now
dangles from her fresh cut teeth.
One gaze into her loving eyes,
will see a future bow
where once this little thing of curls might curtsy
past the blood that soils her lips,
past the reek, the drip, and
rotted breaths stole by the corps
to leave his one last mark.

Oh Rats baby
what have you done?