Abandoned after Breakfast

Doesn’t it seem to you like God,
Nature, what-have-you, the cosmos,

The world is a Skinnerian?
The only reason benighted

Behaviorism worked at all
Was due to its being a crude

Approximation of what life
Does to the living anyway—

Cruelly random reinforcement,
The dark nights alone, the joyous

Reunions, the unexpected
Rewards, the nonsensical shocks.

Pigeons, mice, and babies alike
Responded since their bodies felt

Well, this feels familiar, let’s try
To survive it a while, somehow.