Abstracted and Possessed

Abaft of my vision,
blurred yet somehow still, I feel the presence of
cats, tense with
delight as they
edge along the shadow and
furtively slither through the hallway,
gracefully falling into a nonchalant
humdrum sprawl in a patch of sun.
Indulge us, they seem to say–
Join us
K.  Leave your word
lines behind and
migrate into this lazy light.

No calamities will
occur if you
pet us, pay attention to our
quiet majesty.
Really.  If we make you
sneeze, you can brew
tea, and you will be fine.  Our fur will not
upset your respiratory tract.  Though usually
vigorous in my avoidance, I
walk right into their trap,
xactly as they knew, in their
youthful, smirking,
zen superiority, that I would.

The NaPoWriMo prompt today was to write to write an abecedarian poem–not something I would normally do, since it feels like you are forcing some of the letters (like x) to work somehow. But when I looked at the Random Word List from Sunday, the word cats jumped out at me, and also the fact that most of the letters of the alphabet were represented among the words. Almost all the beginning line words in my poem are from the list, and I just fudged the x word.

I really am allergic to cats, which I discovered when my roommate moved to Pittsburg with her boyfriend and his dog and left her kitten behind. We had never given him a name, calling him Mr. Kitten, which became, appropriately, Mr. K. I had to give him away when my asthma got too bad and I ended up in the hospital, something that still fills me with sadness.

But I’m still an easy mark for a cat.

35 thoughts on “Abstracted and Possessed”

    1. Yes she did!
      I would love to have a cat. Younger daughter may get one–if so, I’ll have one to visit for short periods anyway. A few residences ago my neighbor had four cats, so I got some cat time with them as well.

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  3. That is amazing. I would never have noticed the initial letters in a million years. The poem is utterly natural and marvelous and flowing and then to see that it has this scheme. How did you do it? Cats are great subject matter, but I am giving them none of the credit….

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    1. I was surprised myself how well it fit together.

      My allergies are better than they used to be at least as far as I can tell. I recently visited a friend with two cats and lasted a couple hours before the eyes started itching. I used to start feeling it immediately.

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  9. Sorry about missing cats. I understand. I do too, just for different reasons.

    Love the third cat. He’s fun. But the second, interesting because on second look, yes, amazing how such few lines can make the image so unmistakable. Hmm… few lines, few words, yep, interesting. And you’ve a good hand I think.

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  11. I’m so sorry to hear you are allergic to the feline… And the cats are likely magnetically attracted to you! Love this poem especially the line “migrate into this lazy light.” It seems to capture the languid nature of catness!

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  12. Cats really do seem to have a perverse gravity toward people with allergies! I myself am on 3 different meds to be able to tolerate living with Claudio, and it’s totally ridiculous! An abecedarian seems like just the sort of challenge feline-kind would enjoy demanding of us amusing mortals…

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    1. I’ve actually started allergy shots. It’s supposed to work 70% of the time. I’m allergic to practically everything it seems, in particular every kind of pollen there is, and although I have an inhaler that helps the asthma, all the sinus stuff has gotten impossible. Hopefully it helps with the cat allergies too.

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      1. I should re-start that therapy; I actually got almost through it when I got MS and was feeling too much like a pincushion back then to continue. I do remember I was already noticing an improvement, so fingers crossed for you!

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  13. How did I miss this one? Did not realize it was an abc…ian poem until after you said it at the end. Cats do pull is into their zone without much effort. In a poem you are allergy-free ❤

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  14. Oh, this is brilliantly done. I’m sorry that you ended up in hospital because of a cat, but your artwork doesn’t show any hard feelings, on the contrary. Plus you have the best cat words, especially K. 🙂 A wonderful flow to this one.

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  15. Pingback: Day 28: Index 2023 – An Embarrassment of Riches

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