Shuushin21 Nov 2006

By flow, in this context, I mean to lose oneself within the poem. To be carried from one line to the next without noticing the carriage return; line breaks become invisible.

Practically speaking, maybe the shorter lines aren't doing you any favors here and the shorter words certainly aren't. There are effective poems that do have very short lines but this is difficult to pull off (and I do think you've made some of those, too).

As I look at this poem as a whole, these bits pop: "38 year wine", "paperclip tangle", "give from the marrow", "grape juice"

Much of the rest is either lost in a preposition phrase, or diluted with a weak verb or adjective "spotless white robe", taps and spigots doing things, small plum balls (that's gotta hurt).

The more impact each word has the more easily the poem will flow as the reader is drawn from one thing to the next.