Heisenberg's Cat

Alice is sprawled on a scarlet blanket,
brazen as Marilyn, nipples in the air,
but Alice has six, possibly eight,
nestled in fur too plush for counting.
I rub her belly. We discuss quantum mechanics.

Alice, I liked the old physics better:
atoms like little solar systems,
electrons whirling around. Nice image.
Easy to understand. But these quantum ideas:
blobs of probability,
vector fields of electron fuzz…

Alice arises, squeezes in, accordions out—
miraculous how she gets so long—
circles three times, then curls
into an inscrutable ball of black cat fuzz.

An ear pokes out so I scratch it.

Alice, I liked Newton's physics—like billiards:
stick strikes ball, click click into the pocket.
But now there's this Principle of Uncertainty:
protons, electrons, neutrinos, quarks—
all fundamentally out of focus. All you can see
at the particle zoo are quantum phantoms;
all you can hear is Geiger counter noise.
No ball, no pocket, maybe a click.

And entanglement, how about that?
A photon knows the twist of its twin
across the universe—immediately! Nonlocality,
it's called, where time goes backward
and space isn't real. Einstein didn't like it either.
They're using it for sending code.

So, Pussycat, here we are. This is the ground we're planted in, you, me, and the basement mice. But Alice, it's crazy down where the little things are. Off she trots to the cellar to find one.