i put this randomly from a list of numbers, unseen and i leave it. i think of the provisional. how everything goes soft at the edges and subjective, but also the provisional as hard, like teeth. i ate a potato chip last night and got a toothache in my hollow tooth. i may be forced to remove this tooth or replace it. and i think this is why i think so much about copp's teeth, which he doesn't, and which nevertheless is a kind of choice. choosing to live the only way you can. unconscious or conscious only of the bone and not the beauty of scrimshaw or the degradation of teeth, it's a kind of choice endemic to survival.
the sun's been quite kind. 

and maybe he does see the scrimshaw. sometimes when he pauses and looks off i think, he sees it, and he gets it. when i borrowed his bone to put on the blog he looked at it and me and the camera. he knew i was picturing it and not coveting it. he has a sense of things, an aesthetic. he sees links or feels links i sometimes see.