Often an object can be the conduit for metaphorical significance and resonance. T.S. Eliot described this “objective correlative” as “a set of objects, a situation, a chain of events which shall be the formula of that particular emotion” that the poet feels and hopes to evoke in the reader.” See how a simple food staple from his childhood launches the narrator’s meditations over his past in Stuart Dybek’s “Pet Milk.”