in a car, with a friend, to pick up her parents from jfk early this evening. the traffic was light and the talk between us lighter. then we took a wrong exit and got ourselves stalled by jamaica. in the other lane, in a blue suv, a young boy stared out at something i could not see. he looked so pale as if, to quote a Vermeer scholar, "struck by moonbeam." we stewed in traffic, hardly talking to each other, just looking out, as if from a bay window of a summer rental, almost hearing the leaves of the trees brushing against the windowpanes.