Thing

We love our catfor her selfregard is assiduousand bland,

for she sits in the smallpatch of sun on our rugand licks her clawsfrom all angles

and it is farsuperiorto “balanced reporting”1

though, of course,it is alsothe very same thing.

(From Seven Poems, Beard of Bees Books, 2004, page 2).

1 This poem also appears in the book Up to Speed (2004). The author explains about it: “This was written during the invasion of Iraq when journalists were “embedded” with the military. So war was hovering in the background. I started out with nothing in my mind but to describe my cat, but when I wrote the line “from all angles”, it reminded me of the way news outlets like to congratulate themselves on their fairness and balance, covering the news “from all angles.” Clearly it’s pretty hard to do that while “embedded” in a tank. So a metaphor occurred to me at that point. The media was assiduously licking the claws of the American war machine. But then what happens to my poor cat?” (“An E-Mail Interview with Rae Armantrout by Eric Elshtain & Matthias Regan”, in Rae Armantrout: Collected Prose. San Diego: Singing Horse Press 2007, pages 86-102).