Mannequin Envy
a journal of visual and literary arts
| Sharon
Auberle is a writer and visual artist. Her work has
appeared in various publications and anthologies, including
WomanPrayers, published by HarperSan Francisco, and Literary Lunch by
University of Tennessee
Press. Her visual art, in multiple forms is, and has been, shown in galleries and shows. Mimi's Golightly Café, the artist's personal website, presents her most recent interests--poetry and photography. Animal Dreams Pounding on the roof like jungle drums, rain strips branches bare, twists leaves in the wind, while inside we sleep curled around each other like great cats craving warmth in a world gone to ice. I am dreaming of dancing with a tiger who says, I embrace the mystery of your eyes, and his great paws rest lightly on my shoulders until I wake to find you pulling me closer, stretching long against me, not quite awake, yet enough to murmur of musky dreams, burrow deep beside me, as we preen and purr and lick these tender beasts that we are. Act of Contrition The curtain brushes her skin as she steps behind the purple velvet cloth, its weight hot and heavy like the sins told in this bare closet. She kneels upon the hard bench, whispering as the grate slides open— bless me father, for I have sinned, and begins to speak her shame of touch and thoughts and guilt in the opening door of her young, racing soul. She feels a stirring in the air, faint cinnamon breath drifts through the grate, a disembodied voice whispers back of sin, remorse, of penance to be done, forgiveness sought and she bows her head in contrition, mumbling the words that will save, for a little while, this tarnished soul, this body already ablaze with thoughts of tonight: the back seat of his '57 Chevy, sleek, summer bodies, hot kisses stroking her like the purple velvet sky falling around them. |