Member Poem

Each day delivers more dusty bundles:
municipal records, notary files,
manuscripts and maps, unearthed letters,
videos and sepia photographs.
Page by fragile page must be preserved,
each dog-eared corner patiently tooled flat.
Recto verso recto verso recto verso.
On the wall, a laminated photo:
cockroaches, silverfish, booklice, termites.
Fine powder sloughs from crumbling spines;
acid-free paper binds the yellow skins.
Pairs of white gloves float in the air like ghosts
in the dim, dry, cold of the archive tomb
where every deed longs for the warmth of the womb.