Understreet River

After the rain, the sidewalk exhales through a lattice of iron, a throat of rust. Coins and petals ride the hush, down into a tunnel that keeps no maps.

There, a river you can't name threads past brick ribs and graffiti prayers, its surface stitched with the neon of vending machines that trembles like a hand in sleep.

I follow the sound—distant, wide— past a shopping cart turned altar, past a single glove opening like a moth, toward the cold air where the city dreams.

Above, traffic writes its bright cursive, but below, the water rehearses another language, carrying every dropped sentence to the harbor's dark mouth of salt.