Word Problem with Too Many Variables

By Violeta Garcia-Mendoza

In the past sixty minutes, the mother-poet 
has not written a dozen lines. Her resting 
heart rate crests 119 beats per minute

twice a day, on average. This began in 2020;
it is 2022. Of her three children, one kicks 
the table leg every seven seconds, another 

counts songbirds in the quarter-acre yard aloud, 
a third reads from a book of little-known statistics: 
The safest color car is white; two out of five 

people marry their first love; a woman 
is more likely to be killed by a champagne cork
than a shark. In her inbox, a litmag says

no thanks, but send more poems. In other news, 
a Japanese amusement park advises patrons scream 
inside their hearts. Sea level rise holds steady 

at one-eighth of an inch per year. Four out of five 
surveyed Americans are likely to describe the sun 
as shining. It is almost dinnertime; no trains 

leaving the station. There are over 10 trillion living 
cells in every human body. Based on this set 
of data calculate the future probable 

with a single roll of one icosahedron die. 

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Violeta Garcia-Mendoza is a Spanish-American poet, writer, photographer, and teacher. She is a member of Carlow University’s Madwomen in the Attic Writing Workshops and a reader for Split Rock Review/Press. Her work has recently appeared or is forthcoming in Peatsmoke, District Lit, and Saint Katherine Review. Violeta lives with her family in Western Pennsylvania.

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