Track; Vespers
Track
My boot prints in the snow
have grown a little bigger
every day, gone soft in sun,
the crisp blue edges melting.
This morning, as I followed
or was led by them, I saw,
a hundred feet ahead,
a bird red as a drop of blood,
dipping its head to drink
from where just yesterday
a different Ted had stepped
and hadn’t lasted.
Vespers
The streetlamps come on, one by one,
as darkness washes in, and soon
there is only a cone-shaped buoy of light
afloat at the end of each block, clanging
with color, its surface glittering
with moths, something to steer by.