The Will-o'-the-Wisp

. . . came wafting out of the murky waste
We call our social cyber-swamp:
A lanky, leggerly, coy giraffe,
A fugitive from the Nebraskan zoo,
With spill of bangs and felty cheek,
Whose need for camouflage is great;
And as he stands there like a tree--
Like a grove--he tries to blend,
But cannot bend except to sit.
And when he sits, sometimes with shins
Pinned underneath--like locust limbs,
With praying mantis folded arms--
He'll shyly look away, afraid
To stare and give away some thought,
A secret motive soon betrayed,
For out of hiding here it comes.
It, too, whiffles like a flibber,
Ectoplasmic, groping gases
Grazing knee then thigh then collar.
Soon the whole phantasmal corpus,
Ignis fatuus, floats and flickers,
Bears down hard and blinds the victim.
Thus the awkward, wary strider
Melts into an exhalation,
A fumigation of desire.
This hot and heady and heavy haze
Envelops the unsuspecting host,
Betrays him, too, and he submits
To the willful, wandering fairy flame.