☯

MYSELF WITH CATS

Hanging out the wash, I visit the cats.
“I don’t belong to nobody,” Yin insists vulgarly.
“Yin,” I reply, “you don’t know nothing.”
Yang, an orange tabby, agrees
but puts kindness ahead of rigid truth.
I admire her but wish she wouldn’t idolize
the one who bullies her. I once did that.
Her silence speaks needles when Yang thrusts
his ugly tortoiseshell body against hers,
sprawled in my cosmos. “Really, I don’t mind,”
she purrs-her eyes horizontal, her mouth
an Ionian smile, her legs crossed nobly
in front of her, a model of cat Nirvana –
“withholding his affection, he made me stronger.”

Henri Cole