“expand/contract”

There’s officially no such form as the mirror tetractys. But the tetractys was invented in the hope of being the English-language answer to the haiku, and so was the cinquain, which has a mirror variant; therefore, by the transitive property of poetic forms, the mirror tetractys makes sense!

Or I could just say that people invent forms all the time, and there’s no reason I can’t do the same, especially when it results in a shape that suits the subject matter. But the first one amuses me more.

This poem was inspired by the collision of two different articles, one on historical demonology, the other on modern astronomy. It came out in Just Keep Up in October 2026!