Soliloquoy to the Book A Love Poem Archives rotten, pages forgotten: vellum turned yellow, vacant and fallow. Turn back the back and the pages crack. Rent the binding, torn the lining, splintered the spine. Shreds of linen sent to the confines of a corseted gutter. The jacket wrapped, shoulders warped with water and weight. Pack the pages in, stack the cases in: guts between these skins, but tended fruitless and rendered useless. Yet I entreat your illumination. I beg for inundation of your egg white washes, your gold leaf caches, intoxicating em dashes. Cover me flaxen, suffuse me waxen with honey and oil, leather and foil. Thread me whole, ink me bold, fill my folds. Dress me gilt, caress me still, press me till your sepia words find my signatures. Lacerate these laces. Loosen my cases. Mark all my places with darkened typefaces. Reset these dislocations, inscribe your exclamations, leave your proclamations in these, my very pages.