First things first, I'd like to commend you on your structure. Too often the category of 'free verse' is used as an excuse to avoid the challenging (but rewarding) ropes and scaffolds of fixed-form poetry. The structure of this poem in particular is rather rigid, and as a result leads itself quite well to being read aloud. That, and the wonderful word choice throughout, are the two greatest strengths of the poem.

I'm not a fan of most poetry, and I don't have much of a taste for it either. I don't know of the myriads of forms and techniques and rules that make fixed form. What I do know, however, is that it's difficult to compose both a story and a rigid form without sacrificing one or the other.

This poem goes a lot of the way towards overcoming that obstacle. To a poetry outsider such as myself, who prefers the non-oblique phrasery of prose to the obscured hintery of poetry, the story, setting and meaning of poems can be hard to understand. The only way to overcome this is often to sacrifice form for clarity, which is basically pandering to a lower understanding. Which, needless to say, isn't desirable.

I can understand chunks of the idea behind this poem, even with its strict form and composition, and that is admirable, because I am terrible with poetry. The piece emanates a strange, quiet desperation, a gritty sort of subtle nihilism, and places and people that, if ever painted or drawn, would be done so in sepia monochrome. Well done indeed.