Myself with Cats

Hanging out the wash, I visit the cats. "I don't belong to nobody," Yang insists vulgarly. "Yang," I reply, "you don't know nothing." Yin, 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.'