I really enjoyed this piece, Ted, and thanks for the mention. In one of my recent poem pieces, "Embrace Both Comedy and Tragedy and Prepare Only To Be Unprepared," my notes say:

"I struggle with how much to explain and how much to leave to the eye of the beholder. Readers who relish poetry often prefer only to perceive for themselves regardless of the author’s thoughts, while readers who prefer essays and the writer to make intentions clear, appreciate explanations — it’s a difficult beam on which to balance. So, I'll just divulge a few of the thoughts behind some of my lines."

That poem has 20 unique (the other 5 are refrains) lines and I chose to explain a few of them and explain about another what I did not mean, hoping to avoid the situations you described in your story.