Questions come at you one after another here, and almost none of them get answers. Some are shaped like familiar jokes: the yellow thing that never stops talking, the walrus in the rain, the chicken and its song. Others only pretend to be jokes. "Hippopotenuse" mashes a hippopotamus into a triangle's longest side, and the fishmonger writing a sonnet and the cheese hidden on a Tuesday in April are simply absurd, with no punchline waiting.
The speaker sounds mischievous and cheerful, like someone delighted to keep you off balance. The mood is light and nonsensical, though a few lines hint at something bigger. "Can Earth revolve yet make no motion?" sounds almost like a real puzzle. The final stanza turns to you directly, with a knock at the door and an invitation to come in. The last question, "how does time fly?", takes a worn-out saying and asks it literally. The poem seems to enjoy wondering more than it cares about solving anything.