I have to write you. You
will not go away. It isn't

true love. The true
love will be another. But

we’ll come to that
later. I hope. Cruelty's

not local; stay
home. The beaches 

photogenically desolate;               
curated shoals

of calcified fish and plover
bones—the country's load

of manure and ton
of bricks. Grey gulls

nailed to the wind,
French-fries clenched

in their bills.
Aren't people

shits. Never do
quite what you ask them.

__

[David Alworth]'s ["Pynchon's Malta"] in [Post45] was the germination point for “Letters from the Shore.” It's a fascinating piece. Alworth is a scholar at Harvard, and is currently writing a book, provisionally titled Site Reading: Postwar Fiction, Visual Art, and Social Form.

Beckett’s letters also played a real role in the process of aesthetic evacuation.