A boy and a girl reach out their hands to each other standing in the grass behind the benches in a row along the path outlined by them and the grass behind, as I have said. This grassy place, in the park with the children that play away from the other children who rush and run and jump and leap and bump and tag and pull and push and more and more too much for the littler ones in the grass where their mothers feel safe about them, is fairly wide enough for the children who play there and safe enough without it having been baited for rats because the highway work that will take place in the coming years and that will un-house some of the rat dens by the bay will not have taken place yet when the children stand in the grass facing each other ready to touch hand to hand, finger to finger.
All of this in a park in the city on a day with sun without clouds; Sunday.
The boy and the girl touch finger to finger, one index to the other, other finger tips to finger tips others, then playing itsy-bitsy spider to each other, one after another finger tip to finger tip, each to each, one the same as the other, hand to hand, thumb to thumb and so forth, you see, you have to, just imagine.
A chill breeze blows through the park from the bay that opens out onto the Narrows, kicking me in the ear as it does, March continuing its march into spring.
The Falling Leaf Review 