<u>Answer:
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Approximately 19,000 legally authorized executions in the United States have been confirmed by M. Watt Espy.
<u>Explanation:
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- Major Watt Espy was a researcher from Alabama who was the first to compile the details of about 19,000 legally authorized executions and publish it in the public domain by the name 'The Espy Files'.
- This data referred to the executions that happened over a long period of approximately 400 years starting from 1608 to 2002.
The sleeping speaker is compared to a stone on the riverbed; both lie still. The image of being in water is reinforced by these words elsewhere in the poem: "floated"; "rose and fell, as if in water."
