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This poem is taken from PN Review 161, Volume 31 Number 3, January - February 2005.

At the Spanish Steps Sam Adams

February again, late afternoon:
Black fingers tilt
The fountain's silver, quick
In its marble spoon.
Sun stripes spilt
From a shadowed alley
Across the cobbled square
Will not linger there.
Darkness follows soon.

Severn, sentry in the march
Of life, saw the fountain,
Like a foundered boat, lurch
At its mooring. Light ebbing,
Descended the steep stair, ran
One thirty steps across the square, sobbing,
To the trattoria,
...


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