The Obvious Analogy is with Music

It was a mountain creek, running over little pebbles of white quartz and
mica. Let’s say that every possibility waits. In raga time is added to measure,
which expands. A deep thirst, faintly smelling of artichoke hearts,
and resembling the sleepiness of childhood. At every birthday party that year,
the mother of the birthday child served ice cream and “surprise cake,” into
whose slices the “favors” were baked. But nothing could interrupt those given
days. I was sipping Shirley Temples wearing my Mary Janes. My grandfather
was as serious as any general before any battle, though he had been too young
for the First War and too old for the Second. He carried not a cane but a walking
stick and was silent on his walks except when he passed a neighbor, and then
he tipped his hat and said, “Morning,” if it were before noon, or, “Evening,” if it
were after noon, without pausing his walk, just as nowadays joggers will come
to a stoplight and continue to jog in place so as not to break their stride. Then
the tantrum broke out, blue, without a breath of air. I was an object of time,
filled with dread. I lifted the ice cream to make certain no spider was webbed
in the cone. Sculpture is the worst possible craft for them to attempt. You
could increase the height by making lateral additions and building over them a
sequence of steps, leaving tunnels, or windows, between the blocks, and I did.
The shape of who’s to come. For example, the funny pre-family was constant
in its all-purpose itinerant ovals. It should be completed only in the act of being
used. While my mother shopped, I stood in Produce and ate raw peas. The lovely
music of the German violin. Most little children like beer but they outgrow it.
Unseen, just heard, hard to remember. My sister was named “after” my aunt,
the name not Murree but, like marriage, French, Marie. The first grade teacher,
Miss Sly, was young and she might have been kind but all the years that she
had been named Sly so had made her. A man mitt. I had “hit upon” an idea.
Penny, buster. Uneven, and internal, asymmetrical but additive time. A child,
meanwhile, had turned her tricycle upside down and was turning the pedal
with her hand to make the front wheel spin. The solemn, flickering effects, not
knowing what you’re doing. In your country do most of the girls do this. A cold
but exhibiting hypothesis. I couldn’t get the word butterfly so I tried to get the
word moth. The man with the pinto pony had come through the neighborhood
selling rides for a quarter, or as he said, “two bits,” and it was that “two bits”
even more than the pony that led the children to believe he was a real cowboy
and therefore heroic. He was a trainer of falcons, scornful of hunting dogs. The
body is a farmer. From the beginning, they had to drive the plow through stone
eggs. She pretends she is making popcorn. The boats appeared to have stopped
on the water, moving only as if to breathe. It seemed that they had hardly begun
and they were already there. We were sticky in the back seat of the car. In the
school bathroom I vomited secretly, not because I was ill but because I so
longed for my mother. Now, bid chaos welcome. It requires a committee, all
translators. Undone is not not done. And could it be musical if I hate it.