This form is called a Mirror Poem by Joan Bransfield Graham, from whom I learned it in the early ’90s, or a Reverso Poem by Marilyn Singer, who has published several absolutely mind-blowing books of “reversible poems.” Singer’s poems take this form one incredible step further, speaking in one voice if you read it down, in another if you read it up. So in her book, Mirror, Mirror, the poem “In the Hood” is Red Riding Hood’s voice as you read the words down; while the wolf speaks if you read it going up. Astounding!
SYMMETRY
by April Halprin Wayland
Like little rivers
spilling to the center,
the lines of this leaf
mirror each other.
Two halves
make a whole.
Two halves
mirror each other.
The lines of this leaf,
spilling to the center,
like little rivers.
published in Cricket Magazine June, 1999
