“Kissing” by Fleur Adcock deals with the transitions in a relationship. There isn’t any noticeable rhyme scheme or meter to the poem; the syllable count is almost regular. Since the poem only has two stanzas - both focusing on a relationship very different from each other in terms of time - there is a strong contrast between the modern and the traditional relationships. To expand on this further, the events seem to have been chronologically arranged as things would progress in a relationship. Figurative techniques such as enjambment has been used throughout the poem to refer to the passage of time. Adcock opens her poem by making it clear to the readers that she would be writing about the “young” love first - who are “walking on the riverbank”. Here, “riverbank” may suggest the endless love modern relationships think they possess. Rivers also symbolize peace as people generally go there for relaxing purposes. Adcock describes the couple to be “walking” with theirs “arms around each other’s waist and shoulders”, implying the physical link between the two people. Similar references are also made later in this paragraph - when the poet portrays the couple being “clamped together” and how “they can see no one older than themselves”. There is a lack of any emotional feelings in this stanza signifying that once this relationship is over, it would be “forgotten about”. The use of the verb “pretending” in “pretending to be looking at the waterlilies” shows that the couple is