Leap Years

Have you noticed how we grow old -
sudden thresholds
not gradual shifts.
Barring facelifts
our features stay the same for years,
then time careers
and overnight
its impolite
touch turns hair grey, wrinkles our skins,
adds second chins.
Shocked friends compare,
trying not to stare.

The inner clock plays the same tricks -
it barely ticks
ten years, or more,
then jumps a score.
Others may spot the headline stoop,
missing the scoop:
what’s changed, inside.
But you can’t hide
from consciousness the brutal, swift
sight of the rift
ahead - too deep

this time, to leap . . .

Tom Vaughan

This is a Minute poem - written in stanzas of 60 syllables, in a tight rhyming form. Apparently the form was designed for comic verse, but Tom has stretched it a bit.

If you have any thoughts on the  poem, or on the form,  Tom Vaughan  would be pleased to hear them.