The Afterlife: Letter to Sam Hamill II

For the record, Sam, it’s worth pointing out
we are blessed here with a splendid number
of splendid females, going by such names as
Cleo and Antoinette, Godiva and Pocahontas —
in fact we have a song we sing sometimes,
“Poking Pocahontas.” Poking Pocahontas
in her little funtas is a hell of a good way
to spend a summer’s day, etc. Course it makes
dear old Pokey madder than a wet hen,
and Cap Smith too, but we don’t mean harm
and they know it. That’s what this place is all
about. In this community harm is something
we’re glad to get along without, absolutely
delighted in fact. But I’m losing my way. What
I wanted to say is that I’ve been out here
ten years now- is that right? (I lose track
of what you call time)—and there’s really only
one womanly essence in the place. It’s peculiar,
yet she is every one of them. You know her.
Blue almond eyes, auburn locks that flow
across her shoulders, a wide brow and slightly
hollow cheeks, a full beguiling mouth,
a neck like a gazelle’s, breasts like the swelling
sonorities of clarinets in one of Beethoven’s
early chamber pieces, long arms and legs,
a middle part that sometimes resembles a wheatfield
in a slow breeze and sometimes a vine that twines
in a banyan tree. Her sweet thoughts occur
in my mind continually. That’s the way it is.
Her touch is breakfast, lunch, dinner, and supper.
Her desire is the language of every song I sing.
What a subsistence, Sam! You can’t conceive it.