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Daphne's Warning

Don’t bury your wilderness!
Honor that rakish salvation from
soap and Jane Austin; it’s neither

silk purse nor sow's ear.
Don’t bother with the chase,
down stone steps

all the way to Mongolia;
forget tunneling with worm holes
into a ninth dimension.

Instead, remember how slyly
your own reflection fills
with cobwebs like puddles

in August if you neglect
the beveled lips of crystal
between you and this feral kin.

Bend your light as obliquely as
a sky is full of quasars, giggle
madly as a herd of girls

in skirts scarlet and billowing.
Don't bother with the chase,
your savanna patiently waits.

Find the nerve instead
to trace the iron laced fissure,
defining your own fault line.

Find the nerve to huddle
like Persephone beside Hades;
embrace your Jerusalem.

It shelters an Irish salmon,
you'll roast on hot coals. Feed
its best morsels to your yeti;
and don’t bury it again!

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