CROSSING THE EQUATOR
As soon as I crossed the Equator, I took
a lover - someone very new from a faraway
land, to accompany me on all these new travels.
We decided we would be equals. The 'equater'
after all, equates : Me to her and her to me,
She was the better, and that I could see.
-
We tumbled in madness each night we could,
over roiling hot seas and river passages - all
that stuff of legend. She told me things about
myself that only I could know; I told her of
her families and distant forebears and destinies
from long before; stories of men and monsters.
I'd made it all up as I went, but she wasn't
the type to take notice.
-
One night, she pointed, there were five rings
around the moon - a very bad omen for
her tribe. Each ring meant ten would die,
that night. She was fearful, whether rebels
or animals or poison, she feared for them,
and wept. As it turned out, her loyalty to
me was far greater than her loyalty to them.
She stayed, and I heard never no more of
that moon and those omens, nor what,
if anything, had really occurred.
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