bone · four-hole · washed up
no. 08 · bf-coll.
picked up by you between thumb and forefinger and weighed against the older buttons already in the tin. bone, four holes, the shank long since worn off. once a shirt — perhaps a jacket — somebody's third or fourth pocket from the cuff.
two grams in the palm. the colour of a cream gone slightly brown at the edge. the salt has dulled the rim and left the thread-grooves clean. nearer in feel to the cuttlebone than to any of the buttons in the tin; not quite ready to be filed.
kept in a small saucer beside the lamp, with the other things waiting to be filed. it does not belong to a shirt any more; it has not yet decided what to be instead. closer in office to a coin from a country you have not visited.
field-note — held to the lamp the four holes look like a face just deciding whether to be a face. it stops short.