Alone and diffident
You enter what is there:
The world that does not care
For your predicament,

For mysteries of who
You must become, or what
Your place is in the plot
To which you have no clue.

Turn pages; suffer time:
And, look, you are the thread
Unraveling from the dead;
The clue; the plot; the crime.

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This article originally appeared in The New Criterion, Volume 24 Number 1, on page 54
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https://newcriterion.com/issues/2005/9/a-mystery-novel