In this poem, speaker uses diction and careful placement of line breaks to create a tone of uncertainty and insecurity in they feel towards a past relationship.
The language of the poem is carefully selected to emphasize how speaker struggles to find understanding and solid ground. In the description of weighing the dog, they use the words balancing and shaky to emphasize the insecurity of his situation and the effort which is being used to remain standing. In the first line, they also describe weighing the dog as "awkward for me and bewildering for him" to introduce their own state of mine, which is also paralleled to the description of the past relationship at the end of the poem.
The feeling of uncertainty is enhanced by the way in which the line breaks fragment the sentences of the poem. Each sentence makes up one or more stanzas of the poem and contains many clauses and ideas that are connected in a grammatically correct manner. The use of the line breaks causes many of the clauses to sound broken and incomplete when read individually. For example the line "from our total to find out the remainder that is his" is confusing and strange the first time that the reader sees it, forcing them to think and consider it in a similar manner to the speaker as they analyze theur situation.
