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  • A Discussion
  • Margaret Cipriano (bio)

After the lecture, the dinner, stillin my party dress, I follow the doctorinto the woods and watch him burythe insides of his favorite cadaver. It was a womanhe admits. She wasn't very beautiful. Her spleenin the moonlight: She didn't even knowhow to dog-paddle. In the morning,there is a basket of apricots on the front porchand a note: It Doesn't Get Any Better Than This.I eat one out of my palm. Even when somethinginside me refuses, I do not stop. I line the pits on the edgeof the step. When the doctor visits, he is overjoyedand places a pit in his mouth. I want to yell, thief!I want to tell him I did not return to the woman,did not dig on my hands and knees, did not try—did not.Do you think this is all the evidence we have that we are real and exist?he asks, spreading his hands wide. He then opens his mouth andpulls out a small, black beetle. Look, he says,this beetle will always believe it is a beetle before it is gone. [End Page 47]

Margaret Cipriano

Margaret Cipriano's visual and written work has appeared or is forthcoming in Quarterly West, McSweeney's, DIAGRAM, West Branch, Ninth Letter, Mid-American, Copper Nickel, Poetry Northwest and others. She was recently a finalist for Greg Grummer Poetry Award and the former Managing Editor of The Journal. She lives in Columbus, OH.

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