We All Summon Through Mirrors
Sara Aultman
The mirror began to mist, skeletal in the way thin arms dangle. That smoke thickened, expanded and curled. Gray wisps writhed and darkened until a satyrine hoof stepped out of the charcoal, cloudlike mass. Another hoof, two moonlit calves stretching into thighs, a shifting set of hips, one triangular torso. Keratin scratched iridescence into the floorboards. Every limb shimmered before shifting form: fangs extended past human lips, bare shoulders segmented into scales, knuckles swelling with sharpened bones. Copper filigree bloomed along slick jawbone, which morphed into a vulpine snout. Tiger-like needle claws met her fingers. Soft, long, coiled hair drifted around her head as if submerged tendrils would slip beneath waves. The monster rebuked any attempt to categorize her body. Orange eyes sparked like prehistoric fires against dark caves as she slithered towards me, with pupils slitting and expanding metronymic until finally irises swallowed them whole. The monster moved like flowing water until she stopped, dammed before my bed. Why summon me, she asked, why would you bring me to a world hateful of my shape. Peacock feathers sprouted from the vertebrae of her spine, tense and vibrant and shimmering with malice. She looked over her shoulder and then twisted back around, she orbited me. Another step, her eyes bright with glee and hands poised ready to grab. Her hooves slow-danced a crescent, waltz like a sliver against the vast night. Blinkless eyes stared, both set deeply in her skull and gleaming like uninterrupted amber, timeless. Unfaltering, undaunted, even just one pupil would have been a comfort. Her hair now dripped from her scalp, opalescent and oil-slick. Too many teeth armed her mouth, all razored triangles and hungering geometry. Why, she asked again. I was lonely, I told the monster.
Sara Aultman is a Seattle-based poet whose work has been featured in The Fiery Scribe Review, Fahmidan Journal, Olney Magazine, and HAD, as well as in the anthologies Black Stone / White Stone (Making the Machines that Destroy Us) and HELL IS REAL: A Midwest Gothic Anthology. Sara can be found on Twitter @TheSaraAult.