I once spun a wheel
in a science center,
in an anonymous city of sufficient size to have one.

Paint and plastic peeled at its edges
the stopping lines surely unfair
worn down such that even the non-stakes
of its turning might have been a cheat.

It was a wheel of probability,
of all the living beings in the world:
organized, a pie-chart
of domain, kingdom—mammals separated out,
humans separated again from that, and last
the smallest sliver, barely large enough to hold
its colour representing the chance:

to be you, to be me
let alone to be
so lucky.

© 2026 Lynne Sargent