Laura LeHew

A Word Problem

Four daughters race around me in opposite directions, at a constant rate. They start at the same point and meet every 30 seconds. If they move in the same direction, they meet every 120 seconds. They stay in St. Luke’s seven thousand two hundred minutes; approximately long enough for closure. If a standard vinyl covered innerspring mattress for a Hospital Bed is a 36’ x 80,’ what is on the mind of each daughter?

Hints:

1) Let w = the rate of daughter
Let x = the rate of daughter 2
Let y = the rate of daughter 3
Let z = the rate of daughter 4
Let a = the rate of the missing son

2) Use substitution or elimination Answer (round each answer individually):

Solve for daughter 1: (1)≠(2)
Divert unwanted questions, attempt conversion

Solve for daughter 2: (2)≠(3)
Substitute for a thinner daughter

Solve for daughter 3: (3)≠(4)
Substitute for a smarter daughter

Solve for daughter 4: (4)≠(a)
Substitute for chicken fingers and a loaf of bread

Solve for missing son: (a)≠(1)
Substitute for a new family (see daughters x, y, and z)

I am in a hospital headed toward home hospice. Its route is circular.

Investigative Assessment: Criminal Personality Profiling

“Words act so much like human beings that it is sometimes hard to tell them apart.” -Word Origins and their Romantic Stories by Wilfred Funk

1.

Age.

I must confess,

a woman walked into my dream.

2.

Sex?

Does my memory comfort you—

what my days have become?

3.

Race,

they say—human

and I’m left here with the blame?

4.

Marital status/adjustment?

Why? This conclusion never ends,

wrapped around you splintering my sorrow.

5.

Intelligence;

weapons in hand;

we move into language.

6.

(scholastic achievement/adjustment)

(it’s too late/your skin in the pouring rain)

(dragged backstage by your hair/this time)

7.

Life-style,

if I turn around would that be my fault—

invitation?

8.

Rearing environment?

Do you want to?

She promised.

9.

Social Adjustments;

So Far Away.

Stranger Still, not looking back.

10.

Personality style/characteristics?

Who would know the troubles like a child?

You want what a man wants for a thousand years.

11.

Demeanor—

I wish I was the sacrifice;

maybe I should have wanted less.

12.

Appearance and grooming—

your skin like porcelain

such difficult syllables.

13.

Emotional adjustment;

wisdom is key,

it burns.

14.

Evidence of mental decompensation!

Of some tears

to something more certain.

15.

Pathological behavioral characteristics:

no truth in you exists

your hair writhes.

16.

Employment/occupational history and adjustment.

I wonder about the outcome if you’re lonely.

What did you expect? Devotion?

17.

Work habits—

I think he tripped on reality

and watched it happen and wondered.

18.

Residency in relation to crime scene?

We leave open the invitation

of a silent mother.

19.

Socioeconomic status:

it’s a burning desire

battering the stable door.

20.

Sexual adjustment—

why does my soul feel so

bad and sharp debris carry such clarity?

21.

Type of sexual perversion or disturbance (if applicable).

Just look at my language

mistaking this glow of pain.

22.

Motive?

I woke up wearing yesterday

and the dank finds its way in.