Among
the Excavations
It
was nearly noon
before
the last prisoner was hanged.
The
limp swing of shadows
stretched
across the courtyard
as
the afternoon wore on.
By
sundown the shadows were drawn
into
the cohort of other shades— the tree,
the
turret room where the gold was,
and
the shadows of the guards
who
leaned sleepily against their spears.
By
now the first stars were visible,
and
there was not the width of a coin
between
one shadow and another.
The
guildsmen continued into the night,
the
seal hammered deep into the blanks
until
the profile came clear, divine
beyond
the dead sons’ pleading, a richness of sky
struck
cold and spent.
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