With my car now junked, I travel on foot to a donut shop for morning coffee.  The only
other pedestrian is a young prostitute who paces the same corner by the Pupusería and
row of vacant warehouses.  Delivery vans, cars, trucks crowded with the rakes and leaf-
blowers of gardeners bellow past her.  Both of us understand the horizon is vanishing
point and an echo that aches, like the ringing in one’s ears when walking in the heat of
this region where drought is abundant. As I reach the crosswalk, I look back: she is
pacing the same few yards, and I think how the asphalt in this desert will never be matted
with fragrant ash or bread.  The sky is implacable, and the soil is best suited for the
ravenous routes of blood-colored ants.  I, too, know the silence from the other side of
neighboring walls and shut doors.  If thirsty or in need of shelter, I can bypass every
locked door, forget my neighbor, and pick up a stick, smack the earth several times, yet
only to hear her hiss.