Three lettersDear Arthur,
In your last letter you thanked me for “everything.” Specifically, you mentioned that I had been a moving force in your poetry. And that for the last seven months that you have been celibate in your hometown on that southern island you have done nothing but write. Poems, you wrote, keep you sane. Let me tell you now that unlike any other vocation or “diversion,” if you please, poetry cannot promise anything but promise alone. Keep yourself amused in the meantime.
Should it matter so much that you have not had a lover all these months? I know that when you were in Manila a year ago s*x became almost indispensable. Was it loneliness, or were you simply horny? But you’re horny now, aren’t you? And, as far as I can gather from the poems you sent me, lonely also. Ext
