17:42 · the long crossing at fourth and pine
not the hand. the wrist. the child has reached the age where the hand is no longer offered, and the woman has solved this without comment. her grip is light. she is looking the wrong way for traffic; the child is looking at a sticker on a lamp-post.
the light changes. they go. across the road the woman lets go without ceremony and the child, also without ceremony, takes her sleeve.
field-note i had been standing at the same corner for some minutes. it is not clear that either of them registered me. it is not clear that they registered each other in the way the gesture suggests.