Matins with Slippers and House Cat

Gumshoe is the sound of no sound.
The squeak of a dress shoe on linoleum rings
distinct from a sneaker on a hardwood court.
The sneak of the squeak is what matters.
I sit here in a squeaky chair, trying not to.
I position myself for zero-gravity effect.
Whole nations are attempting the same:
how to occupy the space between squeak
and no-squeak, that is the question.

My feet find their way into worn slippers.
The toes know to curl up for grip.
I pad through the house, in search of a snack,
some tea, or a book of poems. I glide.
The cat comes in to my office to question me.
She wants to know where I have hidden the dry food.
She wails as though she were starving, or mad.
I tell her that, after the French revolution, churches
were used to store grain. I spin in my chair for effect.

She is unimpressed. She only wants to know if
such an act would have brought mice to the altar.
I argue against utilitarianism. She leaves.
I have seen the sweat of nations bead on the brow
of the common worker. I have pilfered the ash cans
of Democracy, looking for butts. I have told
the priest his collar is guillotine-proof.
I have seen them in the night, rubbing chicken
blood on the rough wounds of the statues.