interior shell · once a cuttlefish
no. 04 · bf-coll.
picked up by you with the gentleness it asked for. light as a paper boat and as easy to crush. once it was the internal shape that kept a small animal balanced under several fathoms of cold water. now it is a thing the dog at the harbour would not touch, and is yours.
nine grams. powdery to the thumb. parrot-keepers used to give them to birds, for the beak; for you it does nothing of the sort, sits on the desk and lightens the desk by being so nearly weightless. the inside is a hundred small chambers, an architecture with no architect.
kept near the small shell and the green glass. a drift from the same shore as the harbour, only finer, only further along in becoming dust.
field-note — pressed between forefinger and thumb it gives slightly, like very old bread. it does not spring back.