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Start with your voice. Read it aloud, even softly. Hear where the words hurry, where they pause, and where they ask you to breathe.
Read it again. Notice one image that stays with you. You don’t have to explain it yet. A locked door, a blue cup, a hand reaching across a table: sometimes a small detail holds the heart of the poem.
Then ask yourself what changed between the first line and the last. Did the speaker discover something? Lose something? Leave a question open?
You may find a meaning the poet never expected. That’s part of reading. Your life meets the words, and the poem becomes something neither of you could have made alone.
Read slowly. Feel what you feel. Come back another day and see what has changed.
LJ Bechtel, The Unexpected Poet