Crossing The Line

If you think facing border protection is intimidating, try acting natural when you’re packing poetry—or worse, a saxophone.

- Gary Barwin

NEARLY EVERY TRIP across the border feels like an ordeal: the anxiety, the agent staring deep into your soul, lines as long as the ones in a Walt Whitman poem. Are they going to find the oranges you stuffed down your pants? Do you even remember the name of the place you’re going? New Pork. I mean York. York!

When the guard asks you questions, it’s important to act natural. What is the average rainfall of the Amazon Basin? When did you start cheating on your taxes? Where were you the night of January 24? Spell your middle name. Backwards.

Being a poet, I’m bewildering to the inquisitor in the little booth.

“And what’s the purpose of your trip, sir?”