Dear reader dearest inscrutable listener inscrutably harking or regrettably more likely not harking except in that chamber in me that posits you with me every moment I’m speaking or trying to speak

the degree of your presence the level of your attention from zero to fifty but then before I knew it you were somehow actually with me though it’s still a mystery as to why you decided to join me. | "Dear Reader," New York Review of Books, May 21, 2015