Before the name, the island pulling at the chest,
the sea rehearses what the shoreline holds, then spends
it back: a harbor loud with iron, tides that bend
the masts toward evening, salt on every surface pressed
to rope and wood; below, the broad streets manifest
their noise in increments, drivers’ bodies, heat
released from cobblestone, the stacked, close rookeries
now breathing back, the dark kept low, not yet expressed
in margins bleeding at the city’s edge,
hands that work the ward through night,
a river name unlocking jaw and throat, a thick
return of syllables the palate took in stage,
before the mind — the body earlier than light,
its ribcage swelling — breath not held — but quick.