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.'