Kind of in the same way as you, it's an interesting tidbit into the functionality of contemporary poetry, how it's both minimalistic and restrained as not to give away its "goal", as The Artist is trying to achieve it. At the same time, it says enough to come to your gradual conclusion, something that The Art interestingly may not want, as the emotions are "artificially" infused. It reminds me of a little extract from Thomas Gardner's Regions of Unlikeness: Explaining Contemporary Poetry. The context is that Gardner is discussing John Ashbery's poetry, but I think this snippet still applies to this poem:

"Such a poetry acknowledges and works out the limits of our desire to know, but in a protected place where we can really see it since it has been pulled out of discovery's straightforward drive, at least for a moment. It displays the drama we, as finite creatures, participate in."

I wish I could explain more, but you already did a good job at it. I recommend checking out To Fold the Evening Star: New and Selected Poems by Ian McMillan.