[Alex Pepple]

Hello, Max,

Thank you for this careful, detailed engagement with the poem. I genuinely appreciate your willingness to puzzle through its phrases, and you raise fair questions about what’s being suggested versus what’s being made explicit.

I sense some of your take tends toward a scientific-type precision that doesn’t quite fit the poem. There are not always explicit connections in literal sense given that the poem relies on compression, metaphor, and implication. You’re right that the poem compresses experience in a way that leaves connections implicit and sometimes ambiguous. Thus, similar to how “just a second” in everyday speech doesn’t necessarily means a precise second, the “within a second” is indeed meant more for its connotation of suddenness and brevity, not as a precise measure, and the imagery and diction are intentionally layered and, at times, oblique—relying on the associative logic of poetry rather than direct narrative.

I recognize that this can make the poem feel cryptic or withholding, especially when the connections are more emotional or metaphorical than logical or expository. I do see the value in your close reading of individual word choices, and it’s useful to hear which ones might obstruct rather than enrich the meaning for some readers.

In writing this, I hoped to evoke the fleeting, almost automatic rituals of attraction and social display that happen in nightlife settings, and the ways in which these early, impulsive gestures echo—sometimes hollowly—through later years. But I fully understand that poems work differently for different readers, and your honest, detailed feedback is invaluable as I consider further revisions.

Thank you again for your close reading and for pushing me to think more deeply about the poem’s clarity and accessibility.

Cheers,
...Alex