West With Giraffes

by Lynda Rutledge

When you don’t know where your next meal is coming from, that’s all life is—you’re nothing but a feral thing chasing your hunger every minute of the day.

I whipped off my holey undershirt and pulled on the new one, savoring the thought that mine was the first skin it’d touched.

“Life is life no matter who or what is living it, boy—a thing to respect,” he said. “You don’t get that, then you’re just a waste of skin.”

“Home’s not the place you’re from, Woody. Home’s the place you want to be.”