I followed the map, that unliving thing, that neither invites nor warns me, to the end of the road. To High Rock Canyon, where thousands before me passed through on their way to Oregon Territory.

She used to sleep without her hair. She'd sleep all day. Most of it. She'd be up at night, when I didn't dare come out. I'd hear her shuffling, down the hall, disembodied.

Between daydreams and Las Vegas, Highway 95 drifts from boomtown to ghost town, across flats and up grades. Sagebrush, Mesquite, Joshua Trees, and rocks. A desert alive and full of souls.

There is an albatross of hope. A cumbersome, rotting bird that swings from twine around my neck.

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I was on my Grandmother's farm for the summer when the postman delivered it. The answer to the problem. It came in a white box, stamped with the logo of the US Dept of Agriculture, and a barcode.

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