Theory of Entanglement

You cast love spells like an old hand, contrivances
arranged like constellations. But we are unthinkably
distant, far as the Milky Way, and besides, you never leave
your number. Our particles separated by light-years.
Yet theories state we might appear instantaneously connected.

It’s called general relativity, and it preserves the cosmos.
But like light, it’s got secret curvature, like you telling me
you love me. To verify a theory of entanglement could take
longer than the age of the universe, and by then a black hole
would evaporate, making it impossible to enter and experience.

A lover or an astronaut might not feel anything special at all
when falling through the point of no return, an event for which
we are to maybe, sometimes, or always emerge. Without that
action of Entanglement, space-time has no structure, and we’d
collapse to a point of infinite density. They say it’s the wormholes

between that eliminate the distance, firewalls and defenses, that rise us
above loneliness. Bonds like matrimony for example, extend smoothly
across the edges, are calm and dramaless. “One does not love a place less
because one has suffered in it,” said Virginia Woolf, who never had that
happiest thought that a freely falling person would not feel her own weight.

Amy Neill Bebergal has an MFA in short fiction from Sarah Lawrence. Previous poetry publications include The Centrifugal Eye, Blast Furnace, and A Narrow Fellow. She has only recently started submitting her work. She lives in Cambridge with her husband and son.