Went back to the post office on Avenue today, not for mail, I don't get mail there, I get mail at the box on the corner same as always, I went for the pole, the white one by the brick wall that holds the stop sign and the parking placard, I've walked past it probably four hundred times this year alone, I started counting in March, and I am telling you it looked different today. Something wrapped right up under the sign where the pole meets the bracket, dark, could be tape, could be plastic twisted tight on itself, I didnt touch it, you dont touch things like that, you photograph them and you leave, same rule I used on the valve box back in September and that worked out exactly the way I said it would even though nobody wanted to hear it at the time.

THIS IS NOT A PARKING PLACE. Thats what the sign says, has always said, I checked an old photo from August just to be sure the wording hadnt changed and it hadnt, same red letters, same brick behind it, the only thing new is the wrap and it is up where the bracket bolts the sign on, which is not a height you reach without a ladder or without meaning to be there, nobody leans against a sign post that high by accident. Four hundred times I walked past that pole and never once needed a ladder. Now theres a reason somebody did.

My father used to say a fence doesnt know what its keeping out, it just stands there and does the job. I think about that more than I should. Anyway. The brick behind it is older than the pole, you can tell from the mortar, which doesnt matter to anyone but me.

Not going back tonight. Tomorrow maybe, I want to see if its still there or if its already gone, and gone would mean somebody came back for it, which is the part I keep