The calculator

I'm more cunning than most people 
know, or would believe. It's because
I am so willfully naïve, I'll always 

act as if the best most harmless possible
things are true, of what you've done 

or said. "Best possible," mind you. 
I don't make stuff up, I go with 
what I get. I just don't make up 
your mind for you out of mine. If 
the plain literal or other legitimate
sense of your words could be inoffensive,

Gotcha. I'll respond from there.   

It's a trick. I do it because it's the easiest
way not to mess with your head, and  
whatever's in it. Take you for real. 

As real, and give it back like an invitation.
So, you know, people are like

"This guy's not cunning."

Well, I don't blame them. Fact is, 
I put scant to nil to lil' emphasis 
on how cunningly I wend my ways 
and work my wiles and tend my 
ever-wiser and wizening bias. No one 
would suspect how suspicious I am 
underneath, in my reckonings
and calculations, imagined motives 
ringing your head like a vector array 
halo, because I dismiss those nasty things
all blithe. To respond from the best
you are, which I know full well
you could be, or maybe not. 

We'll see, I reckon. A cunning trick, 

but pretty fair, on balance. I do it 

to everybody, and they swallow it 
like a glass full of light, half-full
of water when your throat's so parched 
it's like it has taste buds all down it, 
dying for the no-taste of truth. 

And swallowing, thirst coming full 
to relief, they think "Is that really 
what this poor sweet fool thinks 
of me?" And "Could I really
get away with it?"

I'm open to finding out