Self-Portrait with Cat & Anxiety
The cat is curled in a ball, nose in tail,
soft tabby side lifting and lowering.
Breathing is a funny thing, something
we don’t think about, mostly. One of the few
bodily functions that’s both involuntary
and controllable. The pleasure and relief
of a deep breath. I’m obsessed with deep
breaths since I read we rarely use our lungs
correctly; we breathe 30% shallower than
we should, something something screen
time, something something nature. Is there
any part of us our techy decadence doesn’t
touch? Now I can’t think about breathing
without taking a compulsory breath, balloon
my lungs as far as they’ll go. Our organs’
unwavering fealty. All night the cat lies
with me while I’m sleepless with worry
about practically everything. Something
something unemployment claim denied,
something something mortgage. Her side
rising and falling. She doesn’t think about
viruses or ventilators or the hospital
down the road, hallways with coughing
so thick you could part it with your hands,
the scavenging of every last breath.
Elizabeth Vignali is the author of the poetry collection “House of the
Silverfish” (Unsolicited Press 2021).
Her work has appeared in Willow Springs, Cincinnati Review,
Poetry Northwest, Mid-American Review, Tinderbox, The Literary
Review, and others. She lives in the Pacific Northwest, where she
works as an optician, produces the Bellingham Kitchen Session reading
series, and serves as poetry editor of Sweet Tree Review. Find her
on Instagram at Random_Acts_of_Lineness.
I really love the juxtaposition of an anxious person with that of a unperturbed, tabby cat. And how the author carries and interweaves that contrast throughout the poem! The cats breathing is so easy and effortless, while the author has to consciously try and slow down her breathing. And the breathing metaphor even spills into the final stanza, where the poem shifts to concerns of viruses and ventilators.
Great stuff!