Accountant

At the office all the morning. Dined at home. Again at the office in the afternoon to despatch letters and so home, and with my wife, by coach, to the New Exchange, to buy her some things; where we saw some new-fashion pettycoats of sarcenett, with a black broad lace printed round the bottom and before, very handsome, and my wife had a mind to one of them, but we did not then buy one. But thence to Mr. Bowyer’s, thinking to have spoke to them for our Sarah to go to Huntsmore for a while to get away her ague, but we had not opportunity to do it, and so home and to bed.

At the office
in the afternoon
letters change to ash,

a black road
printed round the mind.

But no one
but the ink hunts
for a way home.


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 15 April 1662.

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