Influenced by Hjelmslev’s code-oriented theory and Peircean perspectives, this approach emphasizes the process of sign interpretation with due regard to the semantic and aesthetic dimensions of the text, and seeks to reveal a network of signifying relations among signs. In this study, the authors, drawing on Umberto Eco’s component-based criteria and employing the theoretical framework of Aristotle’s four causes, undertake an analysis and critique of one of the prominent poems in the collection Let Us Believe in the Beginning of the Cold Season, entitled “After You.” This investigation was carried out through a descriptive-analytical method on the basis of library research, and its data were examined through both qualitative and quantitative approaches. The principal aim of this research is to investigate the connections among semantic codes, axes of similarity, and the metaphorical network of the text from the perspective of the “model reader,” while the symbolic and metaphorical structure of the poem is examined within the cultural-social context of the text. Accordingly, the semiotic analysis of the present poem indicates narrative coherence and harmony among the constitutive elements of the text, alongside the function of the four elements as one of the semantic foundations in Forugh’s poetry. In this regard, the central macro-metaphor of “seven-year-oldness,” together with the metaphors surrounding it, as a symbolic time-space, represents such concepts as loss, memory, the irreversibility of childhood, and confrontation with the complexities of modern life, and, through a network of signs, illuminates aspects of the lived experience of contemporary human beings.