It was a lean-to one could live in so long as it never rained. It was   a grain of salt close up, looking like a crystal, growing from itself   like an outcrop of land. It was a sail opened in a storm. A memory lost.   A coin tossed at the wrong time, declaring heads or tails. It had the air   of an aristocrat or the stench of a skunk. No matter who bred it, it couldn’t be fair.   It wasn’t a buoy. It kept no one up. It had the metallic notice of a gong.   It was a thoroughbred raced too soon, or a setting moon, or a button lost or   undone. It only had one track and when it sped up it was sure to derail.   It had a smile for a satellite or a smirk for a son. Everyone   thought they recognized its face, but, one by one, they were wrong.