Cynthia Bargar

IMPETUOUS TENDENCIES

Patient became excited, preoccupied with sexual thoughts & denudative.
— author’s patient file, Glenside Hospital

The American Journal of Insanity circa 1905 says:
we place satyrs & nymphomaniacs
immediately after the imbecile
& feeble of intellect.

However impetuous
be the tendencies,
the intelligence — if it is normal
— governs & restrains them.

A woman — her lascivious bearing,
provocative movements,
amorous utterances,
— falls to the level of the animal.

Her intellect neither reigns
nor governs.