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May 7, 2003 under construction Stalled on the highway in a construction zone,  I inhaled tar fumes deep into my lungs hoping I'd get high or, at least, paved.  A Chinese-American pop-pianist was being interviewed between songs on NPR.  Her songs were like children, she explained.  She was their mother.  I killed the radio altogether and listened to the white-hot noise of highway construction.  Tar and noise and shimmering heat.  I closed my eyes to all of it. Against movie-screen eyelids, I watched my daughter unseen.  I had cleaned out my closet and given her one of my old shirts.  Through a crack in the bedroom door, I saw her close her eyes and smell the shirt.  She smiled. Someone behind me honked my eyes open.  Traffic ahead of me moved.  I left that stretch of highway slightly more constructed than when I'd stalled.

©  2003 by the beastmaster