Margaret Cipriano

Deciding Against Time

To be simple, we prepared for something beautiful
but everything went glass and too many slippers

don’t fit. There’s always more wrong here:
our backwards gowns pinch and we’re papered-in,

every bitten apple cracks a crown down the middle—
our cavities ring, are diamond-empty. I want to start again

where a bouquet makes sense only because it is together. But we are all mid-
toss and realizing how hard everything below looks.

Aren’t we too soft for this? Please say yes.
Please say, I’m sorry, if a fall is all we’re in for

and I will turn headstrong, turn nosedive, turn to my knees—
accept this ground and everything that comes down to it.

Margaret Cipriano is from Chicago, IL and currently lives in Columbus, OH where she is an MFA candidate at The Ohio State University. Her work has previously appeared in The Boiler and she serves as the Managing Editor of The Journal.