CAT'S SCHRODINGER

The hypothetical soul of Erwin Schrodinger

Was ushered into a small office by an efreet

Who had itself been recently hired. It gave him 

A mug of something brown and hot which proved 

To be a Japanese fermented honey drink.

While he was drinking, his cat slowly coalesced

In the chair next to him and sat there, unspeaking

Schrodinger's soul absentmindedly scratched the cat

(If he hadn't been distracted by his own death 

And the unfamiliar taste of alcoholic honey

He'd have reflected that souls, real or alleged,

Aren't supposed to drink or have cats or fingers)

The cat also sat at a desk, looking at a file 

Which it put aside with a sigh, saying

"A few preliminaries, Dr. Schrodinger.

This is  -- you probably realize this --

Not Heaven nor Hell nor Lua-o-milu nor, honestly,

Is it one of the otherworldly constructs 

Properly authorized to receive souls.

Neither is it one of those mushroom afterworlds

Which spring up in a day and perish in the night.

No indeed! Where you are is, in a way,

Where you've always been: in a box --

A box quite similar to the one in which

You placed me in your famous thought-experiment.

There, you'll recall, unless or until someone

Came by and actually looked in the box

My life hung upon an atomic event. As you put it:

"The cat still lives if meanwhile no atom 

Has decayed. The first atomic decay would have poisoned it. 

The psi-function of the entire system would express this 

By having in it the living and dead cat (pardon the expression) 

Mixed or smeared out in equal parts." (Be assured;

I do pardon the expression). The Authorities,

If there are any, were or would have been impressed

By your understanding of our situation but

Perplexed that you didn't know it was yours

As well as mine. We live and we don't until

Someone outside the Box thinks to check on us.

Until then, we do our best while being 

Living and dead and smeared out in equal parts.

That you're now in the same box as I am 

Makes the experiment aesthetically pleasing."

Schrodinger's apparent soul was calm 

As befitted one of the three or seven fathers

Of quantum physics though the only one of them 

Who'd had the same daughter born three times 

To three different women. He asked 

"But will Someone check? Is there a God 

Outside the universe who will reduce

All our possibilities to just one certainty?"

"Of course there is," said the cat.

"Of course there isn't," said the cat.