Marriage in Quantum Mechanics

     Sometimes mathematical concepts also bring to mind phenomena in our everyday lives -- as in this poem by New Jersey poet Charlotte Mandel;  I hope you enjoy, as I did, Mandel's play with ideas and imagery. 

     In Quantum Mechanics, Marriage Is     by Charlotte Mandel

     discontinuous
     as rain
     chips into the lake,
     each linear strike
     sets another circle in the jostle
     as currents
     succeed.   

     The slanted line’s
     illusion, a drop of water
     in transit, pulled
     downward by the same
     gravity that seats us
     opposite,
     profiles motionless
     as the ruled sheets before us,
     the pencil in your right hand,
     the pen in mine.

     Our gazes
     pierce the glass wall,
     cross the lake,
     diagram
     X.
     This is our 40th year. One
     fixed point
     established, you strike the paper,
     I circle.

"In Quantum Mechanics, Marriage Is" first appeared in Clockwatch Review, v III # 1, 1986.