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
