BonesOfTheMoonJoy Sullivan, "Mercy".
At the risk of outing my ignorance: what makes this a poem? I have a hard time reading it with “rhythm” because it lacks rhyme, and the line breaks seem almost arbitrarily meaningless as well.
I feel it is much closer to a “plain” parable, but I’m really not versed in literary science.
I’m uncouth too, because this just seems like extra line breaks to make it “poetic”. I don’t mind the parable, though.
Oh, I actually like the story as well, it’s well written and provokes thought and reflection, which makes it very laudable.
I am just genuinely curious if I missed something in terms of classification.
My understanding is that to be poetry it tries to evoke the emotion captured in an experience. Frequently this is accompanied by rhythm and measure but certainly isn’t a requirement.