Rereader
Little escapes you now.
Not the serpentine plot
nor crafted veneer
of Dramatis Personae
nor Wilde-like wit
-- only a skimmer's lapses.
Forsake the cliffhanger
for the comfortable embrace
of overlearned lovers more dear
(because predicted pleasures
do not disappoint
and have a flavor of their own).
Yours is an unearned superiority.
You can linger on side streets
or return to locales once unclear
where the heroine's nemesis
-- more human in Chapter 6 --
could have in Book Y rescued her.
In this conspiracy of world,
its perfect balance
of narrator-engineer
scenes told or untold,
still-voluble hallways
and out-of-character shrieks
you two can whisper
between the lines,
linger and reappear,
persist this orbit,
negate all others
in omnipotent acts of quotation.
June 2011