I will be sharing a few poems from Hell and High Water as we approach its release on August 25th. Here’s one that almost didn’t make it into the book because I wrote it recently.

How Love Is Like the Equator

I used to spin the globe,

thinking the boundaries between countries were tangible.

I thought an actual pole pierced the North and the South,

running through the sphere.

Maybe the equator was a magical line of rainbows

bisecting the earth.

I used to think the lines you shouldn’t cross

would be well marked, too.

That they’d be in written rules.

And admonitions would be issued before you stepped too close to the edge.

But you don’t know when you paddle into Canada.

And you don’t know when you’ve stepped into the unforgivable,

until the gate shuts behind you.