Mercury Pills

You believe in points and wholes
And wish you were wholes yourselves,
Corpuscular, after all,

Each one body with one soul
That leaves for the far-off air.
Stop right there. Already split,

Isn’t it, if you can leave
You, the singular, as you
The singular? Like atoms,

Presumed indivisible
By definition, oneness—
However many, tiny

Onenesses there are—but then
More observation splits them.
Dualism, trinities

(Electrons, neutrons, protons,
The three in one), finally
Another menagerie

Of many little bodies,
Quarks with their own charms and quirks—
Given you love prediction,

We’ll predict—once you’ve caught them
All in colliders, named them,
Bagged, and tagged them, you’ll find some

Manage to fragment again.
It’s a quicksilver cosmos,
Qin, it’s not an elixir.