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9 The Decline Effect She went on four legs at morning into the Marketplace of the Virgins. She bought potatoes and an onion And the tail of an ox for soup. The fountains of the forum healed every supplicant. She watched a crippled girl Strap on marble legs, and a foaming politician cough up a herd of swine. All shadows shrank. She stood straighter as the archbishop untied her tunic. At noon they talked over glasses of grappa and The Holy Father described to her the mechanism of the erosion of truth in the inner sanctum. Outside, twilight arrived Like an epilogue. She waited in the proscenium, tail forgotten, for the last bus to her distant neighborhood, depending On her cane to support her there in her well-earned habit. ...

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