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