Crossing The Equator: New and Selected Poems 1972-2004

Nicholas Christopher has been praised as one of America’s most important poets by such literary talents as John Ashbery, Charles Simic, James Merrill, and Anthony Hecht. Crossing the Equator collects Christopher’s best work from the past three decades and includes a section of new poems that are among his finest.



Cold missiles and a rain

of embers accompany the men

who slide like shadows into the city

faces mud-smeared

stones for teeth no eyes



who slit the throats of everyone

they encounter until breaking down

my door they drag me into the darkness

that floods the corridor

and lock me in an icy chamber

—from "THE LAST HOURS OF LAÓDIKÊ, SISTER OF HEKTOR" |

"Cold missiles and a rain

of embers accompany the men

who slide like shadows into the city

faces mud-smeared

stones for teeth no eyes

who slit the throats of everyone

they encounter until breaking down

my door they drag me into the darkness

that floods the corridor

and lock me in an icy chamber"

--from "The Last Hours of Laodike, Sister of Hektor"