Margin Repair Protocol

the catalog card misfiles itself across a century; we lift the corner and hum a ledger tune

a carbon copy petals out its ghost and we press the duplicate back into the slot with a fingernail

marginalia, patient as a hinge, lists errands we will not forget; redactions become stitch marks

microfilm loops the error until the spool remembers how to carry a day

we grease the binding and the misfiled century settles into its new index as if it had always belonged