Not verbose, she’s quite the obverse.
Anna Graham has one fixation—
rearranging conversation
as voices rant on. Here, ears rehearse

how letter counters can construe;
how each artist paints their traits;
how calipers find replicas for mates.
The game won’t wane—it spells anew.

Is she just wired or truly weird?
She does lament her mental quirk
at night. Some ghastly thing will lurk:
serpents in a dream appeared

with pertness. Asleep, she can’t outrun
a rioter, her editor . . .
a teardrop turning predator . . .
a charging gnu with loaded gun

Mornings end each nightly bout
as Anna walks the beach for miles,
where Laughing Gulls will make her smile.
Esprit persists… is that spelled out?

*****

Barbara Lydecker Crane writes: “I was unaware British people tend to pronounce this surname ‘Gray-um’ instead of the American ‘Gram’. I’m punning on the American pronunciation, and the poem won in the humor category of the Chicagoland Poetry Contest in 2021. Although I’m not nearly as obsessive as this fictional woman is about anagrams and “mirror words” (a pair that spell each other backwards), I enjoy such wordplay. My book BackWords Logic (Local Gems Press, 2017) is all quatrains that contain mirror words, with line drawings by Frances McCormick.”

In 2024 Barbara Lydecker Crane won the Kim Bridgford Memorial Sonnet Crown Contest and First Prize in the Helen Schaible Contest, modern sonnet category. She has twice been a finalist for the Rattle Poetry Prize. Able Muse recently published her fourth collection, You Will Remember Me. 

Photo: “An Anagram” by tcees is licensed under CC BY 2.0.