It is not so unusual for writers to dream of libraries, where endless mahogany shelves are weighted with tomes and pamphlets; where the air is thick with the scent of resin, ink, and the vanilla of old paper. A type of heaven for us, perhaps.

I dream not of a library – but of a reading room. Maybe it is just one adjunct in that word house of the mind; a cubby-nook with rounded, comfortable chairs and aging afternoon light from the simple window. A lamp. A side-table. A rug on the floor. I never needed much.

In here, some wise custodian has preserved all the things we might forget; the private languages of lovers now separated; the baby-talk, the jokes that can never be understood by another. In the pages of this little room are words that are inimically bounded by time; and the stories of singular days, of hours, of moments.

All the things we might forget.