Leap Year

By Angelle McDougall

Leap Year is where all the leftovers go.
Not food, but things like misplayed notes on a piano,
the extra keys pressed on a typewriter,
the words from unfinished sentences,
partial thoughts, fragments of unused time,
redundant words, and lost translations.

The Goddess takes all these bits and pieces
and collects them throughout the years,
carefully storing them in a large jar
like grains of sand in an hourglass.
Every fourth year she tips the timer over
and lets all the pieces flow out into the Universe
to settle and fill in the empty spaces.

           
“I write poetry because it is the language I am most fluent in.” – the writer