evidentiary:alchemy

Imagine: a body concealed in a trash bag and rolled down a steep hill.  Finally, the rolling stops, and the body lies still.  Mouth slightly open.  Face up.  Gums and lips and tongues begin to decay, and teeth loosen.  But instead of falling out into the bag, they fall inward, dropping onto the inside of the cheek.  Sticking there, planted.   And as that cheek decays, so do the skin and ligaments as well.  The scalp loosens and peels away from the skull, creating more space - more shadows - for the teeth to fall into.  And they fall.  Drift actually - pulled along by the glacial progression of the skin, as it twists and knots and peels.  Like shards and rocks and ancient spears, shifting through the soil.  Except here, there is no soil, only skull and dessicated tissue.   

The skull as archaeological site in its own right.

Later, someone discovers the grisly contents.  Scientists note the missing teeth.  They search the bag and the soil, but still, they cannot find the teeth.  So instead, they try a radiograph.  And there, in the X-Ray, they find them: planted at the temple, like seeds.  The teeth had drifted to the side of the head, a few inches right of the eye socket.

And isn't that the perfect image?  The teeth moved close to an eye, as if to say: see me, see me, see me.  See who I am.  Because I can no longer see. 

Literally, the missing face looks out at us with its teeth.

As if sculpted.  As if nudged and smoothed and cemented.  As if an art.  Intended.  A desperate clinging, holding identity close.