winter moth I put your body on
and I was happy with the armor
flight was both possible and necessary
since I was light, brittle and miniature
flight was both happy and panicky
now that I was inside your body
my awareness stretching far beyond
my wingspan and erratic decision-making pattern
I was now entirely akin to myself
now I resembled myself both inside and out
who’s the guy with the new temporality
of a moth’s life, only a day or two
in his resplendent, powdery body
before annihilation minus zero
when January in one enormous puff
exhaled ice across the landscape?
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Excerpt from THE MATH CAMPERS by Dan Chiasson. Copyright © 2021 by Dan Chiasson. Excerpted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC, New York. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
