Thread
I lack the rigor of a lightning bolt,
the weight of an anchor. I am
frayed where it would be highly useful—
and this I feel perpetually—to make a point.
I think if I can concentrate I might turn sharp.
Only, I don't know how to concentrate—
I know only the look of someone concentrating,
indistinguishable from nearsightedness.
It is hard for you to be near me,
my silly intensity shuffling
all the insignia of interiority.
Knowing me never made anyone a needle.
From Where's the Moon, There's the Moon by Dan Chiasson. Copyright © 2010 by Dan Chiasson. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf.
Dan Chiasson
Dan Chiasson was born in Burlington, Vermont, on May 9, 1971. He received his BA at Amherst College in Amherst, Massachusetts, where he double majored in English and classics. He received his PhD in postwar American poetry at Harvard University.
Chiasson has authored five books of poetry: The Math Campers (Alfred A. Knopf, 2020); Bicentennial (Alfred A. Knopf, 2014); Where’s the Moon, There’s the Moon (Alfred A. Knopf, 2010); Natural History (Alfred A. Knopf, 2007); and The Afterlife of Objects (University of Chicago Press, 2002).