Couple blocks over the cobblestones are even, purposeful, 
holding to each other like water molecules, cut to lap 

the sidewalks waving on each side, rolling before each city
driveway and rising again after, to each intersection 

where a polestar light post guides four sidewalks back to the lapping
cobblestones whispering shh, shh, shh to driving tires.

Couple blocks over there are no sidewalks. The cars leak
into the breaking street like hull-holed tugs slow sinking, two wheels 

on the curb, two wheels on what cobblestones remain adrift,
blacktop patched to draw squeals from those driving just faster than slow 

enough, that car on crooked cobblestone cry, a bottomed-out sedan 
longing to be reborn a boat, never the same river twice.

And I, my own slow tide in the only city I’ve ever known,
walk wet footprints, a habit path along the river’s edge
in ghost-white morning mist to welcome a future
overwhelmed by water and wait, drowning in shh, shh, shh.