“. . . all symmetries are based on the assumption that it is impossible to observe certain basic quantities, which we shall call ‘nonobservables.’ Conversely, whenever a nonobservable becomes an observable, we have a symmetry violation.”
—T. D. Lee, physicist
“That’s normal.”
—Reverend Robert Small

Probably
she set out
to make a rainbow
one can’t

get out
from under,
its edges
layered on raw,

bulges overlapped
to nap
down smooth.
Here and there

she stored
spare
triangles,
beside a flower path

or in
an abandoned yellow ray.
Ripples
in her universe
have angles,
and the center
is a long
way down.

A ring
around a quilt
is a square.
And the questionable

bands the inspirational—
there is always
something

further out,
its own zone
and home.
Blue heavens

resolve
into cheap
chartreuse.
An earth-

patch starts
a day, seams it
to night.
But suddenly

her stripes
reverse
the field,
breach

the mirror.
She finds
the remnant shop
of nonobservables.

The most terrible
lane of cloth
she faces—
it is travesty

to posit any
finer fabric
in its place.
And so

the aureate
and anti-aureate
sashes pulse
from the

cornered center
as if
from the splash
of a log cabin.

Infinity
does not
exaggerate:
it is a large object

readable
across a lake,
then foldable, carryable
under an arm.

When one
opens it
again, everything
pending appears.