Finding a Bible in an Abandoned Cabin

Under dust plush as a moth’s wing, the book’s leather cover still darkly shone, and everywhere else but this spot was sodden beneath the roof’s unraveling shingles. There was that back-of-the-neck lick of chill and then, from my index finger, the book opened like a blasted bird.   In its box of familiar and miraculous inks, a construction of filaments and dust, thoroughfares of worms, and a silage of silverfish husks:   in the autumn light, eight hundred pages of perfect wordless lace.