Sat, 10 October

INVENTORY — brick wall, south-facing, late afternoon — 368 hatch-marks, chalk, climbing a crooked column, double-ringed at the top like a trophy — DADDY, pressed in poppy-red, then pressed again, slightly off, as if the hand couldn't wait for the first word to dry — one trampoline sock, orange gone the colour of a tired apricot, wedged for safekeeping, never reclaimed — the curved black rim of a trampoline frame, one spring showing, laying a lattice of shadow across the three hundreds — a snail's silver thread, unhurried, crossing straight through the number 1 as if it too were counting something — marigold, poppy, cobalt, and the pale buttery brick showing through where the chalk ran thin — everything stopping abruptly mid-brick, as though the hand that made it was called away mid-stroke, running, sock forgotten, count unfinished