You arrive in Setúbal believing you are alone.
 

Salt settles into stone.
Heat gathers in narrow streets.
Words burned here once. They still do.

The harbor shifts without appearing to move.
Towns, like tides, are patient.
They do not rush toward you.
They wait.

He is already here —
not rising,
only moving in the same water.

Dolphins break the surface briefly,
take light into their bodies,
and return to depth.

First, the town.
Then — something else.

Two currents in the same harbor
before they know they are turning toward each other.

Nothing rises suddenly.
It has been traveling beneath you all along.

When dolphins rise,
something unseen has already begun.