“I grew up walking the headlands in my hometown of Mendocino, California, so the precipice is a place I know well. Then there’s my tendency toward worry, which I inherited from my mother and her mother, and so on. When I find myself in love, I inevitably end up crossing through this childish phase, when I worry my beloved will not return to me for any number of terrible reasons, chief among them that I am not lovable. And as a person who has lost friends and lovers over the years, I know that love reaches beyond the physical and is, in fact, endless. I guess I wanted to acknowledge that truth through this poem.”