Just want things
proportional.
Just things,
not all.

Not kings, kings
should be below:

shoveling, dripping,
and most of all-

literally speaking-
not people

nothing living
need be within our ratio.

I underexaggerate,
though:

there's something
to population control,

something impossible
yet crucial,

so many ways
to be living,

particles, heavy metals,
even animals are living.

Kings live too amidst their industries
but who would know

and time
just want time

to stay
excessive

the moment cleaving
in threes


About this poem
"Poems are contradictions in their fixity, composed, as they are, by so many moving, breathing, sounding things. I want the universe to be a fair place, to have an evenness to it, but it seems everything is moving away from everything else at its own private speed. Rationally, I want my life to be at least average in length and to contain a reasonable measure of happiness and pleasure, but honestly, I crave much more than that. And then what if I'm at the short end, allowing the bell curve to rise at the middle and extend to the other end?"
-Ben Doller

About Ben Doller
Ben Doller is the author of "Fauxhawk" (Wesleyan University Press, 2015). He is an associate professor at the University of California, San Diego, and lives in North Park, San Diego.

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The Academy of American Poets is a nonprofit, mission-driven organization, whose aim is to make poetry available to a wider audience. Email The Academy at poem-a-day[at]poets.org.


(c) 2016 Ben Doller. Originally published by the Academy of American Poets, www.poets.org. Distributed by King Features Syndicate