Red Cloth

I reached for the salt and knocked it over.

The hymnal was heavier than I thought.

Red cloth. Gold lettering across the spine.

I opened it out of curiosity.

A name inside the cover, written in pencil:

Margaret.

The spine was cracked from use,

the kind of crack that comes

from being held and gripped and read

until the binding gave.

The pages were thin as tissue,

the kind that sound like breath

when you turn them,

the kind that feel almost sacred

just from being touched so many times.

I held it in my palm.

The weight surprised me.

Not heavy exactly.

But substantial. Real.

The accumulated weight of all the hands before,

all the people who gripped this spine,

all the voices singing the same words.

Margaret's name in pencil.

Light. As if she wasn't sure

she had the right to be there.

I closed the hymnal.

The spine creaked.

The weight stayed.