Researchers have recommended that English-as-foreign-language (EFL) classrooms should use lexically easy short poems. However, no studies have examined EFL learners' actual reading processes for these poetry texts, the insights of which are vital for corroborating future poetry-teaching methods. Hence, this study investigates how upper-intermediate Japanese EFL learners read lexically easy short poems and describes their process for constructing a literal comprehension of the text and an interpretation of the poet's intent based on reading time, confidence level in poetry-reading performance, subjective assessment of textual difficulty and postreading verbal report. The main findings are that (1) these lexically accessible poems do not guarantee seamless reading, (2) poetry texts of the same lexical level are read at varying speeds with different confidence and difficulty levels, (3) grammatical deviations disrupted the participants' literal-comprehension and (4) learners encountered various challenges in understanding the poet's intent and could not decipher it. Based on these findings, this study offers the following pointers for teaching procedures: teachers' assistance is indispensable for interpretation, learners benefit from pair work using individuated reading difficulties, scaffolding learners' comprehension of literary languages such as deviations are necessary and teachers must ensure that learners enjoy poetry reading.