SHARON AUBERLE

CHOICES

A man sits hunched on steps.
The light around him is fragile.

Rain begins, spotting his thin shirt.
He smokes, the smell mingles with wet.

Across the river, lightning sparks
over a silent carousel.

We are waiting for a bus
to take us in from the rain.

For a moment
I could love him.

The bus arrives, rain pours.
We board, he slips quietly to the back.

I hear two women reading from a book:
what if you could choose your own death?

One reads to the other. They giggle. I don't
think I could love them.

A man sits next to me.
He looks like the Dalai Lama.

Yes, I will love him,
spinning silently

on the carousel
in the rain.


SHARON AUBERLE will have more poems in a forthcoming edition of ANGEL HEAD.