I am grateful to Sam and others for pointing out problems that I hadn't seen. It had not occurred to me that anyone would assume that the addressee is the Chorus of Agamemnon. I don't picture Cassandra only in the context of that play. I meant the addressee to be an unidentified person who would represent any person (though I actually had in mind a resident of Troy who, for the purposes of the poem, had a young daughter). Since no one ever believed what she said, the addressee could be anyone, but I liked the shock of Cassandra's making the situation personal, in a very sinister way.
Robert, although I am bothered by the associations that "silent scream" evokes for some, of the anti-abortion movie, I hate to let that rule out the whole idea of a silent scream in a poem. For now, I think I'll keep it, but I'll keep my mind open for alternatives.
Roger, I hadn't realized that the last line could be read that way. I meant, of course, that no one wants to know the date of his or her own daughter's death. I will try to see if other people also read it the way you did.
Janet, Cassandra refers to Daphne's fate, but I didn't mean the addressee to be Daphne or her father. The "you" in this case was meant to be equivalent to "one." I'm not sure how to signal that I am using it this way, but "one" sounds rather stilted as a substitute. I'll keep thinking about it.
Thanks again for the responses.
Susan
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