I lean forward and drape my arms over the steering wheel and feel a single drop of sweat sinuously trailing down the path of my spine. My head turns to take in the folder on the passenger's seat. I reach over and pull out the blue pages, not all the way of course, because this light may turn green any second. I look up at the traffic signal just to make sure I still have my red. I do.

The words I see, as I carefully fan through the pages, are the tail ends of each line. I haven't memorized all the poems but they are as familiar to me as if I were their creator. I have typed and formatted and scrutinized each for spelling and grammatical glitches, yet I know these 117 poems, front and back, on these 67 sheets of Sea Spray 70-pound paper, are not perfect. I notice the date for "You Taught Me" is at the upper right corner and it's supposed to be on the left; my eye catches the word "till" when it should be seeing "'til." I sigh and remind myself it's only a dummy. More critical than perfection at this stage is that every sheet to be bound is accounted for, in order to determine the exact size of the book. Then and only then will I have the proper dimensions for the design and layout of the cover.

The driver behind me honks; Southern California drivers are so conceited. With one hand on the wheel and the other blindly sliding back the pages of "Romance Within" into the folder on the passenger seat, I impulsively gun it. I am my father's daughter, my son's mother.

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