Two days ago I began composing a poem, which immediately asked me to arrange its as-yet-unwritten lines into rhymed quatrains. Then late yesterday morning, when I was seven stanzas into the first draft, the poem announced that it wanted to assume the persona of a mysterious character named Mrs. Dickinson, who, since she is sitting in a cold automobile, cannot possibly be the mother of the Miss Dickinson of Amherst fame. Nonetheless, she has already mentioned that she has a daughter, so who know what will pan out here?

As Laurie Anderson remarks in her song "Baby Doll," brains can be very bossy.