Response Poem

I read archival copies of your love,
Deciphering the hands in which it's written,
In hopes of finding explanations of
The way you hoped, and how you have been smitten.
I cut the signatures as yet unbroken,
And scanned what you had printed in your name;
I searched your marginalia for a token
Of wildness before you became tame.
And I can tell you nothing that I found
Because the words were empty in my eyes;
The papers were indifferently bound
By other hands, who did not recognize
The author of the work, and so mistook
And set you down in error in each book.