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Anthony Amsterdam
Scene in a Paris Courtyard
All afternoon the high-walled courtyard’s floor
is shadow-flooded, sunk in blue-grey gloom.
But just at sunset, strokes of amber light
flare across it like a dripping oar
that drives a tired dory home,
beach-safe at last from lunging, cresting night.
The cobbles glow a moment. Through a door
a shawl-wrapped woman limps. She brings
her wooden bucket to the courtyard tap, and bends
and fills it like a voyager
revisiting her sun-touched, momentary inland spring
before embarking on a lightless ocean without end.
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