Page 8 of Wayfarers

and you have no firm place to stand; you’ll fall

through it to your breaking.

We had only one law: do what you want but do

no harm. But even that was too much

constraint for some. We called ourselves leaderless

but that’s never how it really works

and the most corrupting species of power

is the one you pretend you don’t possess.

They renamed me ’Munk, short for Chipmunk,

after the stuffed toy I’d clutched when I arrived to them.

My mom had gotten it for me at a state park gift shop

a few months prior. Along with the clothes

I wore it was my only inheritance

from my old life.

They teased me about it

sometimes. “’Munk? More

like ‘monk,’” Dawn and Willow

would crow, whenever I would

decline those pleasures in which

they gleefully indulged—the joint

soaked in something

a fellow drifter cooked up

in a motel room with sticky carpet; the anonymous

hookups with strangers.

My mom rechristened herself Wildflower.

We had no name for ourselves

other than Family.

I’m ready to speak

my true name again.

Knox A Partial List of Things I Remember About Living in a Home