Pauperbacks

This is a short poem about coping with a natural and unavoidable process.

I find offense in yellowed pages
Of a book that through the ages
Does increasingly remind
Of crippling touch of time unkind

Amazing that through preservation
Of someone's imagination
One can see such devastation
By means of disintegration

Although it is well understood
That time is a necessity
How humbling the crumbling of paperbacks can be!
For is its spine not unlike mine?
And if it were to fail
Would it not then arise the question:
Will my brittle book prevail?