Reflexion of a Novelist

Howard Nemerov

In time, these people all will know each other.
But me they will not know, spelling the words
Of which alone they will be put together
A certain while, though sundered afterwards.

Is happiness illusory or real?
I need not decide today, but should do soon.
Will meningitis or the automobile
Doom one or both, or should the honeymoon

End in the faced despair of their mistake?
Whichever, they cannot know me hovering there
A dimension past the space in which they speak
And do as they are told, nor be aware,
Even when bound and put upon the shelf,
How their voyeur will have exposed himself.