Sara Lynne Puotinen
THE CUT-OFF WALL
Roughly twelve thousand
years of raging from
one downtown to the
next, and only a
tick on the geo-
logical clock from
transformation,
only one thousand
feet from where river
breaks through the last
bedrock and energy
flows more freely. Held
back by a concrete
wall engineered to
keep water working
for a new city.
A century and
a half later the
concrete still stands and
the river has not
stopped trying to move
past it. Water will
flow where water wants
to go, under and
over and through. Ghost
rivers run beneath
neighborhoods, emerge
as springs falling from
high bluffs. Groundwater
seeps through limestone,
tumbles down slopes,
drips through sewer pipes
cracked open by rust.
Sometimes the girl envies
water’s refusal
to be tamed, sometimes
she wonders what will
happen to two
cities when water
finally breaks through
concrete, and sometimes
she wishes water
did not have to work
so hard to be free.