Quark Soup

A poem by Magdalena Ball

It’s all poetry you said
flipping a coin
heads I win, tails you lose
an intellectual dead end
waste of time
sitting in that soft chair
contemplating the universe
which may as well be your navel
as unwashed and meaningless
in the overall scheme of things
as pass the remote control
and whisky.

I imagined those infinitesimally small
wiggling objects called strings
vibrating inside me
sperm meeting egg
the birth of subatomic particles
comprising the cosmos
I wanted to see it
keep the eyes open
hold the mirror down there
a female perspective I know.

Untestable theory
eleven dimensions
parallel worlds with different laws
wormholes
dark matter
so diverse it can encompass anything
which makes it utterly useless
against a hungry mouth
a worn out scientist
too tired to read another book
too angry to breathe another breath.

I felt it anyway
damn the theories
damn the frozen heart you conceal under
your lumberjack shirt
the logic may be faulty
but the emotions are resistant
to linear thinking.
Hunger is still hunger.
Love is still love.
A sperm meeting an egg still produces
the inexplicable miracle
life
love
meaning where there once was none
the strings are playing their
own symphony
regardless of how many great men
are able to map it
in bland black and white notes.

There’s your theory of
everything.