The disturbing thing about having a friend named JonFord is that he just sits down and writes this stuff, no hours of agonizing over exactly the perfect word, squeezing syllables around, and his poetry is better than mine.

The rhyme scheme is simple, just rhyming couplets. (pairs of lines) The meter is more complex. Odd-numbered lines start with three syllables, first and third stressed, then two iambic feet. (two syllables, second stressed) Even-numbered lines are conventional iambic decameter. This gives tension between the lines, as the reader is pulled back and forth between the two forms.

The first four couplets (eight lines) follow a very rhythmic pattern: when, where, how, why. The last four lines could be set off in a verse by themselves, because they break away from that pattern to complete the poem.