“Coal” is written in free verse. Lorde breaks the 26 lines into three stanzas. The second, or middle, stanza is 15 lines, slightly more than double the number of lines in the first stanza (seven). The third and final stanza contains four lines. While the 15-line stanza could resemble a sonnet (which has 14 lines) if the reader only glances at its length, that resemblance fades in the varied line lengths.

Throughout the poem, the lines vary in length from one word/syllable to lines that reach the left and right margins. The first line only contains the one-syllable pronoun “I,” and Line 12 spans almost the entire page. This gives the right-hand side of the poem a ragged edge. In this way, Lorde’s form resembles her content when she writes “ill-pulled tooth with a ragged edge” (Line 15). It also means there is no consistent meter in the poem.

Lorde also changes some line breaks between the two different published editions of “Coal.” For instance, in the version published in 1968, the second stanza begins with “Some words are open / Like a diamond on glass windows” (Lines 8-9). In the version published in 1976, Lorde changes this line break: “Some words are open like a diamond / on glass windows” (Lines 8-9).