Poetry Blog: An Exercise in Enjambment

Fishing

I still comb every crowd

for those pale jade eyes I love

you, walking through a door

one of the many I left open,

just in case a memory stirs

me, a taboo kiss

me, a lover drowned

in the black sea of your past.

Those dark waves could

not swallow me like you

they were seductive,

unkind but not strong enough

to wash down all that love

I still feel, still live

with the one regret we share

your fear, your shame

separates us still

I scour desolate streets

to find you, fill your heart

with blue topaz, say

I forgive you.

Notes

I wrote this a few years ago after reading too much Margaret Atwood (if such a thing is possible). Enjambment is my favourite poetic technique: it’s perfect for creating jilted rhythms and emulating feelings of uneasiness and unevenness that are at the core of this poem…and, indeed, many others I have written.