Too much talk

All this talk of religion:
grab a Slinky and weigh it back
and forth in the palm of your hand.
It's the same thing.

"We go in, we go out.
Nobody gets hurt."
SNL - remember that one?
"We go in, we go out...
nobody gets hurt."

None of this talk is real.
Not as real as the tea brown sadness
of your eyes.
Nor as substantial as the gallon
of questions that rise to my lips.

The dwarf rabbit shuddering,
the cat ghosting my doorstep,
even the reptile flipping in the yellow pond -

all have life, move, quest, eflux, effuse,
cry, yearn, ache with loneliness.
Yes, they do. I've seen it.

None of them, as Whitman said,
lie awake with choice dangling;
ready to narrow their neighbor, vet a friend.

So this endless talk of religion
of balance and diplomacy -
who cares?

Not that horny rabbit,
not the hungry cat or
the sliding turtle.

****

Sleepy snap sick of the incessant chatter.