Short Essay On the Muse
The engineer catches an accidental in the seventh movement, flipping switches at it, waving tuning forks. Hearing one note sung can inspire the carefullest lie. I saw the same girl twice on the same corner—we were walking in opposite directions but the second time in reverse. She must come now, no one thinks, not me, not knowing which girl, and there she is. Hearing one note sung, hearing it bright and unthought before you expect it, comes before the wish. Usually it's sounds or shapes in the grass. Yes, those are deer on the lawn, and the wish comes true before you make it. If only there were a doe! First, something pale and unnameable, and then the scurry to invent her.
The Inkstain
A boy who didn’t love me back gave away a shirt with an inkstain from eighteen years earlier. I wore the shirt and the stain faded and disappeared by the end of summer—it was a miracle. I kept wearing the shirt and eventually forgot its significance, and on every birthday I grew less worried that I might forget to grow older. Like everything you remember, the anticipation of growing is lost steadily but incompletely. It goes slowly, and when the great miracles come you fail to recognize them.
