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Ideal Distance (poem)

Ideal Distance (poem)

Published Dec 9, 2022 Updated Dec 9, 2022 Culture
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Ideal Distance (poem)

 

 

Ideal Distance

 

When gathering gets competitive

it, too, becomes hunting. The same thing’s at stake:

who’s left with how much space.  

 

The contraction of the deer herd’s internal organs

pointed to a drastic reduction in its habitat,

while a mouse’s skull can pass through the tip of

a ball-point pen even, and its fur mass can shrink by two thirds.

 

Did you know that for the Japanese, the ideal distance

is that between two bodies bent at a 90-degree angle

and is measured by the tops of their heads touching?

 

Here, no more than one person sits down per bench

at the railway stations. Only lovers

and wrestlers dare get closer than that.

 

©Anna Bentley 2022 for the English translation

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