This poem works well as a prose poem because it is tells a piece of a story without the whole thing. It gives the reader an insight as to how the speaker feels and gives context too it, but doesn’t have a full storyline with a plot and everything. I love that it starts off with the conscious thoughts of the speaker towards the situation he/she is in when the person he/she is talking about says they want to be kissed by him or her. It makes me think of a friendship where one person is completely uninterested in the other person, yet has no idea that the other person is interested in them. I’m not sure if that is what the poem was about, but it’s what I thought about when I read it. It makes me think the speaker is disappointed and disconnecting from the other person and everyone else because they feel rejected. They begin to watch other people without having actual relationships with them, as if people are meant to be admired rather than in relationship with.
I really liked the short sentences or pauses with commas like “by her” and “like he does, like I should.” It allows the reader to step inside the mind of the speaker and read at the same pace that the speaker is thinking. I like that there are so many similes. It definitely puts the speaker’s point into perspective, and also provides good imagery. I was a little confused by one of the similes though, like “hazy edge of the marsh bank” because it didn’t fit as well with the other similes in that it didn’t seem to portray the same idea of admiring something from a distance. I could understand that it is seen from a distance, but it marsh bank isn’t something I would think of as admirable, so I was a little confused by that. However, I did understand the point of the comparisons between the admiration and the other similes. I like the flow of this poem, I think it is easy to read, and understand, without being too plain. It definitely provokes images and emotion. I like the final line because it ties everything together with the point that the author is trying to make. Essentially “no spark but appreciation” sums up what the poem is about and works well as the last sentence.