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The knob had a daughter. She was a fluid. No, she was a worm. She was not a worm. She was a thread. She was a hair. The dog had a hair. The pig had a hair. The milk had a hair. Look in the milk. There is a hair. It is thicker at the root. It is long and thin. It is sticky at the root. It smells. The dung had a daughter. She was a smell. She was a wet smell. She stuck to the foot. She stuck to the stairs. She said, listen, but she was a smell. Do you hear a smell? said the cook. Do you hear a smell? said the gardener. We cannot hear a smell. You cannot hear a smell. The housekeeper wiped the smell with a rag. The rag had a daughter. She squealed. There are eggs in the rags, said the cook. There are worms in the rags. There are flies in the rags. She put the meat in the rags. She put the rags in the sack. She put the sack in the hole. The hole had a daughter. She was a rock. No, she was a clod. She was a fat, wet clod. The farmer made his stream on the clod. The Master stirred the stream and the clod. He made mud with his stick.
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The nursery is changed. The sounds have changed. It is not squealing. It is not banging. It is dripping. The nursery drips. The chimney drips. On the roof of a grand house, chimneys, a forest of chimneys, thin chimneys, black chimneys. The Master walks in the forest of chimneys. The forest is not safe. It is slick. It is steeply pitched. Dogs run after the Master, slide after the Master. Their nails scratch on the slates. The Master walks from gable to gable. He rests by a chimney. He leans. He puts his hands on the hairs where they thicken. He jerks against a chimney, the black slot at the top of the chimney. His white hairs have changed. They are black. Between his legs, black soot, the black heads of the dogs, the flapping ears of the dogs, the red tongues of the dogs. Above the nursery, the attic. Above the attic, slates, gray slates, black chimneys, the Master. On top he is white. Below, black. He jerks with his stick. He is above the nursery. He drips. I crawl to the mouth of the fireplace. The stone is cold. The ashes are wet. I put my hands in the ashes, my knees in the ashes. I put my head in the chimney. The air comes apart in my mouth. I gag. My eyes burn. I press my face to the stone of the chimney. Fluids run on the stone. I lay on a low stone wall. It was hot. There was a sound. I crawled on the stone. I tried to crawl on the stone to the shade. Hairs stuck to my hands. I crawled through the hairs. The shade was far away in the forest. All around: the field. The yellow field. The field made a sound. The sound itched. I couldn't hear it. It itched. My eyes burned. I let my head hang. My tongue came out of my mouth to wet the corners of my lips. I crawled. I touched a shape on the stone. The hairs thickened. They made a shape. I touched the shape. It was a cat. I saw the face of a cat, the open eyes of the cat. I looked through the eyes of the cat to the stone. I put my fingers beneath the cat and I lifted. It flipped. It was only the skin of the cat. Flipped, it was white. It was dry and white. I lifted the skin. It flew up the chimney like ash.
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The nursery is filled with books. There are books on the carpet. There are books on the chairs. The crib is filled with books. The covers of the books are black. Each page is a cat, the skin of a cat. The children flip the cats. They rub the cats. They scrape the cats with their nails. The children are vastly changed. They are quiet. They are piles of black fabrics and cats. They are cats. They are little skinned cats. I open a book. I try to look through the book, the holes in the book. I open the holes with the knife. I see my foot. I look through the hole in my foot. A carpet is made of strings, black strings. The strings come up through the hole in my foot. Tamworth has a hole, says Spot. Tamworth has a hole in her foot. I laugh. Spot is quiet. He is a book. The children are books. They are quiet. I don't hear you, I say. It is quiet. I hear drips. Above, I hear bangs. I hear jerks. I hear scrapes. Don't move, I say. Don't move. You are a book. A book is filled with skin. Little skins. You need to clean the hairs from the skins. You need to scrape the hairs from the skins. Spot is changed. He sits on the chair. No, he tips over the chair. He lies on the carpet. He takes down his trousers. He puts his hands on the hairs. He scrapes with his nails. He scrapes. He scrapes. Hairs fall on the carpet. Tamworth squirms. She has her hands in her thighs. She scrapes. She scrapes hard. She kicks the runners of the rocking horse. She kicks the belly. She kicks the neck. She pushes her body backwards. Her dress bunches. Her white thighs are very big. Her head touches the iron leg of the crib. Her white thighs are marked with fluids. They are shapes, red shapes. It is a map, a wet map. It is the field. It is the town. Where is the nursery? I say. I crawl close to the map. It smells. Little white hairs root in the shapes. At the roots, red. At the tips, white. The skin shakes. I put my mouth on the shapes. I smear the shapes with my mouth. They taste hot. They taste thick. Tamworth hits my nose with her wrist. She moves her wrist. Between her thighs, she scrapes. She scrapes. She makes a hole. A worm crawls out. I put the worm in the crib, in the rags in the crib. I look down at the crib. I look down at the children. I smile. I make the shape of the nursery with my mouth.
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After the lesson, we will go to the forest. We will take the globe to the forest. We will take the books to the forest. We will ride the rocking horse all through the forest. We will push the horse with our legs. How many legs? I say. Six legs, says Spot. Six legs, says Tamworth. We have six legs. A fly, I say. We are a fly. A white fly. We live in a blister of meat. What is a house? I say. A blister of meat. There is no meat, I say. There is no house. We live in the forest. We live in the field. We pick stones from the field. We lie down in the furrows. We lie down. A fat girl passes. She is the cook. She has a tray of cakes. She has a pitcher of milk. She rests the tray on a clod, the pitcher on a clod. She sits on a clod. She scrapes her sores with a knife. She wipes her knife on the cakes. The gardener passes. He puts lilies in the milk. The stalks fill with milk. The throats fill with milk. They drip milk. The petals turn white. They drop on the clods. They are cream, great clots of cream. Ladies drink cream. They turn white. Their skin is clean and white. The farmer rides through the fields on a horse. He has two legs. They flap on the sides of the horse. He slides from the horse. He sits on a clod. He puts his thing in the milk. He drains his thing in the milk. He holds me close. What is that smell? says the farmer. A lady won't know. She won't know. She isn't taught smells. I don't know. What is a smell? I don't know. It is milk, I say. It is the lilies in milk. I laugh. Flies tickle my foot. They crawl from the hole in my foot. Each fly has six legs. Each leg has six hairs, little white hairs. I pull a hair from my foot. A long white hair. With a needle and a hair, I could stitch the hole. I could fasten the button to the hole. I could close the hole. I could cover the hole. Something fell from her mouth. Her foot slipped again and again. She dropped. She screamed. She jerked. Something fell from her mouth. It fell on the grass. It was small. What is small? I say. A child. An apple. A child is small. An apple is small. A key is small. A button is small. It was small like a button. I sat in the field. I found a button attached to a hair. I followed the hair to the house. The hair wound through the house. It wound through the hooks. It wound through the rails. It wound around the knob of her door. I touched the knob. I pushed the door open. Her neck was tied to the bed, to the tester of the bed. She dangled. Something small had fallen from her mouth. I climbed onto the bed. I put my hand in the dark between her breasts, in the hole between her breasts. I crawled into the hole.