Related to the previous posting on how life sequences can often be encapsulated in lyrics, I found too that readings often require what is commonly called suspension of disbelief, that is, willingness to accept the possibilities, therefore effectively squelching that little voice that says "but it can’t!"
In Sandoval, the main character of Ham is trying to account for life happenings by pinning it down to unknown formulas that could possibly apply. By asking "if", the potential opportunity to find an answer widens to a tree-like graph of branches of thought and patterned with leaves of circumstance. But answers don’t always come in clearcut patterns, just as looking at the sky through leaves is a composite of layers that happen at the same time, overlapping without touching each other in different planes of depth and, at different times. So what one sees is never what is seen by another. Never the same to the same again.
Very often in literature, as in life, a tempering tone of "nothing is real" — the 70s version of today’s "whatever" is helpful.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology