"California Plum"   for Nathan Trujillo, discovered frozen to death in a   public restroom in Boulder. Feb. 3, 1992, and   identified only as "a derelict." I suppose I was a derelict. I was a derelict's kid. I succumbed to man and minotaurs were a thing of the past not in my vocabulary. I knew the trees, the fruit, the sweet, the fences in my neighborhood to get me there where dogs and men can't reach. I beat the boys and joined their clubs. No initiation could deter me. Oh yeah, I know where the tracks go, how to catch it going South, what to carry, who to talk to, what size jar of instant coffee will get you into camp-- how to walk like a child of a maid, go inside the Inns, at 10am the leftovers line the galleys: ham and omelet, waffle, cutlet, biscuit, gravy.... I filled my skirt with jam and ate through noon. I judged my troops by the content of their refrigerator (only ones with working moms could pass). And oh, my literate acquaintances! My bums and babblers banging in the stacks! I suppose I'm just like they are, dry inside at last, pumping the poems of Pushkin, Poe and papers by the racks. I sat in there most every day, whoring working hours away. I know the open places, graves, the cemetery gate -- the only one we're allowed to pass without eviction. Idle tears will get you anywhere, said Tennyson. You can read it in our clothes, the rips we care to camouflage, bunker, in clunky shoes and hand-me-nots, the stabs, the odds of ever reaching our normality. I'd say I was a derelict -- I was a derelict's kid.