Stops Short

Four metres under Hôtel-Dieu the facing stone is dark where fire worked it.

Twenty metres of stone and timber, Gallic join of block and beam. In front, a burned wooden room and seeds that finished into carbon.

A spearhead at the foot. The dates run two hundred to ten— wide enough for fifty-two and for mornings that never saw a legion.

They will not call it proof yet. Heat that made the wall speak also left the limestone too soft to stay; they will take it into light, then lift it, and cast what the courtyard held.

The island keeps the question open. The seeds keep the year they will not name.