Seepage: Reciprocal

4 boxes, 6.5 linear feet

(an excerpt from LABOR)





Two figures now. The woman who is the doctor of anthropology and the 
inspector who only works at night, who uses the office space belonging to the 
anthropologist like a parasite. She turns the key and enters. Or presses the soft 
numbers of the code onto the alarm keypad. She is ready for either method of 
locking, an interlocutor to this site and she is proud of this position. The glass 
doors behind her reflect her own body, which she mistakes for another body, and 
this always startles her even though she knows. 





The Inspector descends the staircase and makes a left down the hall, then a 
right, then puts the key in, and opens. Memory of the red-brown cockroach who 
scratched across her feet on the sidewalk, outside. Memory of the feel of the 
forms, an inside. To fill out, seal, and lick. Always a struggle against dryness, 
disintegration. At first, the taste was a little sweet. Now she needs more to keep 
satisfied. 





Inside her borrowed office, she notes that the woman with the PhD, this 
anthropologist, has collected a set of card catalogue drawers salvaged from the 
old version of the library. The inspector notes that they are metal, and the edges 
are sharp. Already a new danger for her log and she has not even removed her 
jacket. The inspector knows not to expect anything soft from this other woman. 
So far there are jars of various sizes, a coyote skull, a small collection of 
porcelain frogs, framed photos of work crews at the dig. And enough odd pieces 
of the former institution to document in her book of dangers: metal chairs folded 
up, a box of pencil sharpeners that used to be affixed to the walls, bolts loose 
and rusting, dictionaries. Artifacts infused with potential injury. Also an 
autobiography, the pages of which the inspector reads each time, careful to close 
the manila folder and place the papers back just so. Each time, she decides that 
the manuscript is quite dull. The inspector knows she must leave behind some 
skin oils on those sheets of paper, but the anthropologist has yet to hide this 
particular folder away. 





And of course there are the stacks of her inspection papers—complaints—to 
catalogue and file. Her archive grows. In this she might say she is fertile. 
Eventually, she will make seven categories of boxes and linear feet. All labeled 
with one of three designations affixed to each document: 

	      reciprocal, neutral, 

	      antagonistic. 

	      R, N, A, for short.  

Paper accumulates, her system acquires muscle and flesh. Inside that small 
basement space where the light is not natural. Thorough explorations of the 
outside will have to wait. How her tiny room and its papers can throb all on its 
own. 





Light slivers out from this small basement office with two desks for two women 
who never meet. 

Tonight the inspector is startled by a recycled folder slipped under her door and 
then, like in the movies, footsteps scurry off. Someone else must know the code, 
using it only to dash in and out, using night only to start the process: a grievance 
is filed.  





[Female voiceover: "Yes, like grieving, but without tears."] 

There are advantages to the night shift. The planners never lurk about. She can 
sit however she prefers. It is also peaceful to emerge each morning in the low 
light, walk slowly toward the park, the subway entrance, and she descends. It is 
Thursday and the anthropologist comes out of the subway and walks right past 
the inspector who notes this credentialed woman’s heavy bag, but that is all. 





Daytime dream of the boss she never sees, the one about whom everyone 
writes: 
 
disheveled from overwork, he confesses how badly he too would like to lick the 
envelopes that hold copies of the filed complaints. She thinks how the word 
"envelopes" reminds her of "verges" and this association, plus her own warming 
skin, convinces her. "Yes, you may proceed."