The forces known to physics reassure us.
Objects stay put, in 3-space; or they move
in paths we can account for. Things add up:
we've got them taped. The stuff is all conserved.
Yes, but not all the time.
Reality has cracks. There's a dimension
crooked to all the rest. I don't mean Time,
nor those seven extras beloved of modern maths
standing at neat right angles to each other.
This is much worse:
a crooked vector opens unseen cracks
by which the lost things leap.
That key you dropped behind the bookcase – gone!
You took the books out, all, unbuilt the shelves,
swept every chink: -- not anywhere at all!
Keys, coins, are specially good at jumping through.
But today I even lost a lock, a padlock!
It leapt from my hand to the carpeted floor of the car –
Gone! In one second gone! I saw it vanish!
I had the seats out – undid the handbrake housing.
Gone. No longer in our 3-space at all.
It's not just locks and keys, it's sometimes books.
That book I treasured – didn't lend it to anyone –
suddenly not there, in any bookshelf.
Thieves? Well, maybe, but not your ordinary thieves….
Gnomes! gremlins! They creep out of the cracks,
the little cracks in space, the wicked wormholes,
and snitch your things into that grey dimension
that stands at a left angle to all the rest.
It's not so much the losses that I mind –
I can replace the key, the lock, the book.
What I hate is miracles!
These stupid little miracles shake my faith
in safe reality. Behind all this
there could be anything – angels, demons, ghosts!