With a small adjustment to the unadventurous line breaks, your epigram could enter the strictly metrical world of Alexander Pope’s “Eloisa to Abelard”.
“I know that you’re a thousand miles away,
yet each grey car I glimpse demands I look again.”
Here you’d have a regular iambic pentameter and a regular alexandrine. But such epigrams don’t punch above their weight unless they rhyme. (As a rare alternative, the absence of rhyme could be used to produce a shock, but a rhyming pattern would need to be established previously.)
Perhaps your two lines are the second half of a heroic quatrain.
“Your hair, your wife and all your deeds are grey,
presumably; they cause nobody pain.
I know that you’re a thousand miles away,
yet each grey car I glimpse demands I look again.”
You need a better first two lines than mine.
You might want to change “yet” to the plainer word “but”.
I’ve been thinking – and counting on my fingers(!). Surely the fact I’ve got an Alexandrine would mean it couldn’t be half a heroic quatrain? Wouldn’t I need to lose two syllables/ a foot ?
So, re-jigging, and adding in a cliché or two to celebrate the season, I reach:
I’m missing you: alone on Valentine’s day
I’m waiting at the bus stop in the rain;
although I know you’re half a world away,
each grey car glimpsed demands I look again.
(And I still have 11 months & 27 days to make it work.)
don't confuse the narrator 
With a small adjustment to the unadventurous line breaks, your epigram could enter the strictly metrical world of Alexander Pope’s “Eloisa to Abelard”.
“I know that you’re a thousand miles away,
yet each grey car I glimpse demands I look again.”
Here you’d have a regular iambic pentameter and a regular alexandrine. But such epigrams don’t punch above their weight unless they rhyme. (As a rare alternative, the absence of rhyme could be used to produce a shock, but a rhyming pattern would need to be established previously.)
Perhaps your two lines are the second half of a heroic quatrain.
“Your hair, your wife and all your deeds are grey,
presumably; they cause nobody pain.
I know that you’re a thousand miles away,
yet each grey car I glimpse demands I look again.”
You need a better first two lines than mine.
You might want to change “yet” to the plainer word “but”.
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Why does your comment make me think of report cards saying “must try harder”?!
Actually, I don’t think mine ever said that; you are more demanding than any English teacher ever was. (For which: “Thank you.”)
Having almost a full year till next Valentine’s Day, I have plenty of time to think again.
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I’ve been thinking – and counting on my fingers(!). Surely the fact I’ve got an Alexandrine would mean it couldn’t be half a heroic quatrain? Wouldn’t I need to lose two syllables/ a foot ?
So, re-jigging, and adding in a cliché or two to celebrate the season, I reach:
(And I still have 11 months & 27 days to make it work.)
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