Free Verse · Love
Across the Table
You across the table,
sleeves rolled, telling me the story
of your day like it's an epic —
and to me, it is.
Kingdoms have fallen, love,
for less than how you look right now,
reaching for the check
you'll never let me pay.
Original poem © QuillOak — personal sharing is permitted.
“Across the Table” by The QuillOak Editors — quilloak.com/poems/across-the-table
Quick facts
- Poem
- Across the Table
- Poet
- The QuillOak Editors
- Length
- 8 lines
- Form
- Free Verse
- Themes
- Love, For Him, Short
Craft notes
How this poem works
Measured from the text on this page, not copied from a summary. Counts are approximate: syllables and rhymes come from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, which models General American English, so dialect, older pronunciation, and performance can all change what you hear.
- Shape
- 8 lines · one 8-line stanza
- End rhyme
- No regular perfect end rhyme. The poem may still be using slant rhyme, assonance, or internal echo, which this check does not score.
- Line length
- Lines run 5-8 syllables (median 6), consistent with trimeter. No single length dominates, which is normal once elision and contraction are in play.
Want the rules this form is measured against? Read what makes a free verse, or run your own draft through the form checker to see the same measurements on your lines. How we measure · Report a mistake
Text, source & rights
A traceable edition
Original QuillOak text. Personal sharing is permitted; other reuse requires permission.
- Author record
- The QuillOak Editorstoday
- Source record
- QuillOak originalAcross the Table, authored for QuillOak by The Quillery
- Display decision
- Full text · United States · reviewed 2026-07-18
- Publication record
- Not recorded in the imported source
- Text fingerprint
- SHA-256 ceec42308f3d3728…
- Editorial handling
- Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.
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