“The Cat” read by M.C. Armstrong

From the new edition of The Flowers of Evil by Charles Baudelaire, translated by Aaron Poochigian.

Come to my lovesick lap, my cat, my dear.
Retract the talons of your paws
And please, please drown me in that gorgeous stare
made out of steel and glass.

Whenever my fingers pet with perfect ease,
your head and supple derriere,
whenever they excitedly caress
your electrifying fur,

I seem to see my woman. Her scrutiny,
cold and unending, like your own,
affable creature, flays me like a blade,

and, from her feet up to her head,
a subtle air, a dangerous bouquet,
radiates from her dark brown skin.

From The Flowers of Evil by Charles Baudelaire, translated by Aaron Poochigian. Translation copyright © 2022 by Aaron Poochigian. Used by permission of Liveright Publishing Corporation.

M.C. Armstrong is the author of The Mysteries of Haditha, published in 2020 by Potomac Books. The Brooklyn Rail called The Mysteries of Haditha one of the “Best Books of 2020,” and Armstrong’s story was nominated for “Best Memoir” at the 2021 American Book Festival. Armstrong, who grew up in Winchester, Virginia, embedded with Joint Special Operations Forces in Al Anbar Province, Iraq, in 2008. He published extensively on the Iraq war through The Winchester Star. Armstrong is the winner of a Pushcart Prize and his fiction and nonfiction have appeared in Esquire, Consequence Magazine, The Missouri Review, The Gettysburg Review, Mayday, Monkeybicycle, Wrath-bearing Tree, Epiphany, War, Literature, and the Arts, The Literary Review, and other journals and anthologies. He teaches writing at the University of North Carolina Greensboro and is the guitarist and lead singer-songwriter for Viva la Muerte, an original rock and roll band. His first novel, American Delphi, will be published in the fall of 2022. You can follow him on Twitter @mcarmystrong.