Cataloguing history

The flicker of cards, a quickly beating heart
Stopping once you see the name
Green inked by a spinsters spider hand
Evans, Mary Ann
Pseudonyms anathema to this recorder
Black letters typed beneath refer you back
Eliot, George
The intercession of a later woman

Six by five and six by five again
A wooden tomb filled by love letters
Mapping the changing art of record
Keeping books, subjects, authors wedded
By references which cross and tangle
Intricate as any family tree

Slowly dying as the cards migrate
Losing green and black alike
Obliterated as they merge
Behind a cursor on a screen