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      May 5, 2025Lance LarsenWhy I Petted the Cat

      Because I was tired and cranky and it was too late
      to take a bus to Siena and ask Saint Catherine’s
      mummified thumb to cure me of insomnia,
      neuropathy, and other afflictions petty
      and daily. Because Florence was threatening
      to rain all over us, especially me. Did I
      mention I was starving and that my wife
      wanted to visit The David a second time?
      Because this cat craved attention and because
      my impatient American paws had to do something.
      Because petting, according to some, is therapeutic
      for all. Not a Persian or Maltese, this charmer,
      nor a fancy ebony number, just a motley calico.
      That’s a point in my favor, isn’t it? Me trying
      to love all mammals equally. Because my species
      once grew fur everywhere. When petting,
      begin with the ugly cat head, face and ears
      and neck, then under the greedy cat chin.
      Sure, I worried about distemper and Lyme
      disease and feline herpes and ticks but not enough
      to stop. Because I considered myself a back-alley
      healer, an amateur shaman (not that I bragged
      it up on a crowded bus or at wedding receptions).
      Because I liked tracing the backbone, transferring
      lightning from human hand to feline spine.
      Because I liked tabling my inner debate about
      who would win in a painterly bar fight,
      DaVinci or Michelangelo, and ignoring how
      to bribe God into liking me again. Because I
      could tell from the cat’s beseeching eyes
      she was alone in Italy, like me, and spoke almost
      no Italian. Because her purring was exquisite,
      her swishing tail unregulated by Pope or police
      or cloud. Because chaos was everywhere,
      because I like the electric glow of a small success.
       

      from #87 – Spring 2025

      Lance Larsen

      “Ezra Pound once described artists as ‘the antennae of the race.’ Is he thinking of a longhorn beetle on reconnaissance feeling and smelling the world before the creature itself arrives? Or maybe he has in mind a ham radio operator like my childhood neighbor who built a tower in his backyard and listened for messages beamed from on high. Don’t writers do a similar thing? As a poet, I live for the chance to sit quietly in a corner waiting for something plain or wondrous to catch on my flypaper.”