Brr, Footrest by Francis Heaney
This is from a delightful book that you can read online or purchase. The preface to the first edition includes the following:
The question of what would happen if poets and playwrights wrote works whose titles were anagrams of their names is one that has been insufficiently studied in the past. This may simply be because most poets and playwrights have not written any works whose titles are anagrams of their names. So, much as musical scholars used Beethoven’s unfinished notes to complete his posthumous tenth symphony, we have created a series of literary reconstructions that represent our best guesses as to what such anagram-based literature would be like. Given that we had no notes whatsoever upon which to base our work, we had to be extra scrupulous.
That said, enjoy this selection!
BRR, FOOTREST
ROBERT FROST
By Francis Heaney
This ottoman is in my way.
I tripped on it again today;
It chills me with a nameless fear
To think it sees me as its prey.
My loving wife must think it queer
That I am always falling here
As I am walking past the chair.
How comical I must appear.
When I remember to beware
The wicked footrest lurking there,
I do not stumble in a sprawl,
And yet such instances are rare.
My house is cozy, warm, and small,
With just one thing that wrecks it all:
The ottoman that makes me fall,
The ottoman that makes me fall.
