Dave Bonta's short poem turns one word, "trouble," over and over until it starts to wobble. A paper about trouble troubles the people who read it, and from there the trouble becomes "a paper trouble," something made of words and ideas rather than real events. The repetition makes the lines feel like a loop the speaker can't quite climb out of.
The most interesting moment comes in the fourth line. The speaker says they "paper" their wits with trouble, which could mean they cover their mind with it, the way you paper a wall, or hide behind it. The last two lines then give a twist: they do this "because I would not / have trouble." In other words, the speaker invites a flimsy, manageable kind of trouble to keep the real kind away.
The mood is wry and a little anxious. It's playful on the surface, but underneath there's a hint that overthinking can be a way of dodging what actually hurts.