Page 23 of Wayfarers

of canned green beans and peaches in syrup

and boxes of animal crackers. I would go

down there to read and escape

the North Carolina mountain summer heat,

which at the time I thought was awful

but now I know

isn’t anything at all. I haven’t spoken

to my mamaw in years. I hadn’t let myself

think of her in a long time. I miss her. I love

her. She loved me. I believe

she’s still alive. I want to see her again.

And that’s when I knew that I had

my destination. I’d been taught

to treat dreams as dispatches from a spirit realm.

It happened that way a lot—one of us would arrive

at the morning circle

and announce they had dreamt of palms

and waves lapping on a warm shore, and we would set

a course for Gulf Shores, or Malibu, or

Destin, to learn the dream’s meaning.

(Very rarely did it prove to be anything real.)

In the morning I’ll shower again.

Pack my things on my back

and find a way into town. Seek

a railyard and hop a freight train south.

Wind my way to Murphy, North Carolina,

and mamaw’s. I’d never traveled that way

before but we’d had people sojourn

with us who had; they told me how. And I speak

the secret language of the vagabond