Flavors in a Switzerland Rabbit Hole

Lavinia Kumar

While it’s always awkward to go to a dance without a partner, without a preferred partner, it’s especially hard in a speedy cosmic world. (And in that world, forgive me, “partners” are called by some, “quarks.”) It is even more awkward when gender is set aside in favor of flavors – but not the ice-cream or FroYo kind. To pile on the agony, these flavors come with embarrassing names like Up, Down, Top and Bottom, and, forgive me once more, Charm and Strange. And, no, this is not an Alice in Wonderland dance, where at any moment one might expect a partner out of a teapot or a teeny door. 

But it is, perhaps, like an ice-cream world, in the sense that some of these flavors mix different sub-flavors. Ben and Jerry’s One Sweet World brings in coffee caramel, marshmallow, and chocolate chunks in a three-way partnership, kind of like bigamy. Cherry Garcia plays on the Dead with cherries and chocolate chunks (definitely not soggy marshmallow), and, who knows, perhaps Jerry tastes it from his Dark Star.

But, back to the dance, where combinations of flavors usually happen in twos or threes. And, as it emerges, in this dance, illustrious invited guests are in combinations of fours and fives. Please welcome the Tetras and Pentas (names that make eminent sense). They come in their well-recognized dress of Charm and Anti-Charm the basic fabric, the other flavors added here and there.

Since the music at today’s dance is extra fast (maybe like a Garcia Alabama Getaway), it causes an Anti-Charm to scoot away from Charm… and ooh, the change in flavor, and ooh, the fulsome attraction! Charm becomes enamored of Strange and Up, and Anti-Charm infatuated with Down. What a to-do! Imagine the swing, the speed, the swirl, as the Charm-combo now seeks a permanent rush to separation as they all speed (how fast is it?) along the dance floor!

Oh, the flaring, spitting energy!  The fury!  How will this end?  

The Science

This poem is inspired by the recent discovery at CERN of new penta- and tetra-quarks, as outlined in their press announcement of Tue 5 Jul 2022 on the LHCb website. After a long shutdown, the faster detector provided new and statistically important findings.

The Poet

Lavinia Kumar has degrees in chemistry, biology and science education, and is the author of three books or poetry, most recent, No Longer Silent: the Silk and Iron of Women Scientists. Additionally, she is the author of four chapbooks, most recent, Beauty. Salon. Art. (Desert Willow Press), and she is the editor of A Certain Kind of Swagger: Poems from Christopher Bursk’s Poetry Master Class. Find her latest and upcoming poems in Tiny Seed, New Jersey Journal of Poetry, Paterson Literary Review, and Schuylkill Valley Journal.

Next poem: immobility time (s) by Kate Giffin