In a sparsely populated reading room, late afternoon
poring over manuscripts, scrutinizing unfamiliar hands:
Gothic not uncial
Who can read this?
not you, not them maybe her, bent over paper
intense, withdrawn from the world
inaccessible in her quest for access to the past
hands absorbing these manuscript pages scribbling notes
for regurgitation in class an article a book
on women in Old English poetry, reclaiming their strength and authority
[suffer not a woman to teach]
Alone is not lonely in the archives
pieces
of
pages
scraps
of
stories
fragments
of
form
These ancient, endless tales, colloquies, homilies, sermons,
palimpsests. Old English, Anglo-Latin. Cross-reference: Vulgate
traces, I’m tracing the letters, seeking their shape
This could be an i no, m no, n
Latin when it was living
it’s dead to you to them maybe her too
I see dead things
that aren’t dead
Look! Just here—
Judith slays Holofernes
in Latin
… Tea?