Missing Ducks

I turn, startled,
as if someone
dogged my steps.
Nothing.
Midday sun
scatters down
among sapling ash.
At my feet, birdtracks
wherever I look.
The only ciphers of the day.
My footprints merge
with the ones laid down here,
my whole body,
heart, lung, muscle,
leaving its trace.

•

Everything that moves
leaves a story. No story
can exist by itself.


from Deciphering the Alphabet, by Francine Sterle