chronosynclastic infundibulum

In The Sirens of Titan,

The book Lily told me about

When I was in the hospital,

Kurt Vonnegut invented a plot device,

As he so often did.

“Chronosynclastic infundibulum,”

He called it,

And I briefly dated a guy who said that

That was a very fancy way to describe duality.

He wasn’t exactly wrong.

Chronosynclastic infundibulum is the concept

Of time,

Such that time was shaped like a funnel,

And that sometimes people who got stuck in it

Could exist in all of time

All at once.

The way he explained it,

In very Vonnegut fashion,

Was to invent a children’s book and say that,

If two children think their fathers are the smartest fathers in the world,

The universe

-Time, space, all that jazz -

Is shaped to allow both children to be right.

Because of Chronosynclastic Infundibula,

Multiple things can be true,

Even if they seem to conflict.

Duality.

He made it all up,

And I know that,

But I hope some part of it’s true,

Because I hope that somewhere in the universe

-Time, space, all that jazz-

There exists a version of me forgiven

In a version of Time where conflicting things can be true:

Where I can be both fully flawed and fully loved.

All at once.

Duality.