MY LATE RESPONSES TO YOUR COMMENTS

Word Problems

Reading, writing, and the arithmetic of finding time to reply

A different kind of Tree Diagram. Photo by pure julia on Unsplash

Veni, vidi, vici — Julius Caesar

I was never much good at arithmetic

but a C-
in long division
is one thing.

Flunking dividing a long day
into thirds –
reading, writing,

replying

is a calculation of a different color.
I’ve got to quit horsing around — no matter

how time stampedes or bucks,
what new to-do neighs,
whose expectation kicks me from behind.

My horse’s ass silence at the end point of your sweet, supportive song — fortissimo red inked. As rude as ghosting’s wrong remainder.

From my stool in the corner, I doff my dunce cap — tossing it over there, somewhere, in the dust brambles whose obtuse angles no longer trip me like witchy croquet wickets in bamboo forests. Wickedly needed, noted, connoted subtraction, color-starred.

I am squarely rooted.