The Cat-Walker

By Bänoo Zan

is holding the cat 

in her arms

She is just as round 

as her cat

Sometimes she lets the cat

walk her

in leaps and bounds—

the leash stretched tight—

The cat does not respect

the traffic lights

Sometimes I fear they will be 

hit by a car

Sometimes I wonder

what the cat is to her

what she is to her cat

But it’s always a delight

to see them on their 

walks 

defying a world

dominated by

dogs

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Bänoo Zan (she/her) is a poet, librettist, translator, teacher, editor, and poetry curator, with more than 200 published poems and poetry-related pieces as well as three books. Song of Phoenix: Life and Works of Sylvia Plath was reprinted in Iran in 2010. Songs of Exile, her first poetry collection, was released in 2016 in Canada by Guernica Editions. It was shortlisted for Gerald Lampert Memorial Award by the League of Canadian Poets in 2017. Letters to My Father, her second poetry book, was published in 2017 by Piquant Press in Canada. She is the founder of Shab-e She’r (Poetry Night), Toronto’s most diverse poetry reading and open mic series (inception: 2012). It is a brave space that bridges the gap between communities of poets from different ethnicities, nationalities, religions (or lack thereof), ages, genders, sexual orientations, disabilities, poetic styles, voices, and visions.