Dust Memory

I opened a book from years ago

and the dust came up like memory.

That particular smell—

must and time and the specific rot

of pages that have been sitting.

Not mold. Not quite decay.

Just the smell of being old,

of being kept, of being forgotten

on a shelf long enough

that the paper itself

starts to smell like absence.

My fingers left marks on the dust,

small prints that disappeared

as soon as I lifted them.

The pages were yellowed,

brittle at the edges,

and I could see the dust particles

floating in the light from the window—

all those years

suspended in air.

I didn't read anything.

Just held the book and breathed it in,

the smell doing the work,

bringing back the person

I was when I first read this,

the one who could afford to

leave a book on a shelf

for that long.