Reservation Love Song

“Reservation Love Song” is an example of Postmodernist free verse. Many Postmodernists use free verse because it doesn't adhere to strict meter or set forms, meaning poets can be as playful and as transgressive with language as they want without any metrical, formulaic expectations. Even though "Reservation Love Song" is free from any prescribed meter, the form remains neat: only a few of the lines jut out, and most of the lines stay within the four-to-eight-syllable range. All five stanzas are quatrains (they contain four lines). The poem's deliberate structure bolsters the intentionality of the reservation system it describes.

The lack of meter or melody also undercuts the “song” aspect of the poem. There are no rhymes, nor are there very many melodious words in “Reservation Love Song.” The absence of meter creates a mostly flat sound that suggests the lives of the speaker and their beloved lack the harmony often found in popular love songs. Near the end, however, when the grandma enters the poem, some musicality kicks in with the repetition “we can sleep warm / we can sleep good” (Lines 19-20).