A paragraph can look like the beginning of a short story and still be a poem. Without verse line breaks to announce itself, a prose poem asks the reader to notice what the language is doing: its compression, rhythm, images and changes of expectation.
The Academy of American Poets’ glossary describes the prose poem as prose that retains poetic qualities despite lacking the line breaks associated with verse. That does not mean any paragraph containing an attractive metaphor becomes a poem. Form, context and the whole reading experience matter.
Read for pressure inside the sentence
Consider this original miniature: “At dawn the kettle borrowed the sea’s voice. Three cups waited on the table, though only two people lived there now.” It offers a setting and a suggestion of absence without explaining a complete history. The sound image and the unexplained third cup carry much of the effect.
A story could begin with the same sentences and expand into events. A prose poem might stay with their tension, letting association do work that a plot would otherwise perform. The boundary is not always sharp, which is part of what makes the form interesting.
Try a second reading aloud
Listen for repeated sounds, pauses and changes in sentence length. Ask which words could be removed and which are carrying more than their literal meaning. Paragraph form does not remove rhythm; it simply offers different visual cues from lines of verse.
For a writing exercise, describe a familiar object in a short paragraph, then revise it around one surprising but coherent association. Avoid adding abstract explanation after every image. See whether the ending changes how the opening is heard.
Read published examples in their original layout before deciding where you would add line breaks. The absence of those breaks is a choice worth examining, not an unfinished formatting job waiting for a reader to repair it.