X-change of Gifts
And what about the cards and poems, quotes,
The flowers he sent to me? They don’t exist.
I packaged all of them, his little notes,
His trinkets that I’d kept like treasured cysts
In my aorta, tiny souvenirs
He’d handmade, made from love, and gave them back
When we were finished. “Just two mismatched queers,”
You’d say, “no reason for a cardiac,
For trying to hold on to flimsy stuff.”
You’re right, at least about the second part.
To you we seemed caught up in blindman’s buff,
Each trying hard to blunder into heart.
..Then he returned these things that I’d striven
….To bind with. We ended up forgiven.
Ah. So here in the penultimate line you DO have eleven syllables to keep the iambic pentameter for a line ending with a “feminine” rhyme regular. (Your ear must have directed you!) But then the final line goes back to ten syllables, which means stress falls upon the unstressed final syllable, or . . . chaos.
Easiest fix is to add a one-syllable word between “with.” and “We . . .” That would keep the meter/rhythm. Of course sometimes poets DO break form and intentionally interrupt the meter . . .
I’ve rewritten line 13… “Then he returned these things that I’d striven”. It is of course inevitable to have a “flawed” iambic pentameter line with a feminine end rhyme. In this case I’ve swallowed the bitter pill.