Coming Back for More
 
Such imaginative children....
She said her daughter lived nearby.
He said his wife married his cousin.
Such interesting birthmarks....
 
Scars from the hard work not of birth
but of death. An image scratched
into the clean slate of infant skin
to record a sudden departure.
A souvenir tattoo of blade, bullet or rope.
The belief that we have returned
or will do so, with more to learn
and a desire to walk the earth again.
Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists and Jains
will have heard this all before, before.
 
Same characters, different costumes:
a reinvention. A safety in numbers
as souls transmigrate. Some say
they could have lived life as a cat,
transmogrified, as it were, with four paws
climbing the ladder to enlightenment.
My parents and I shared a birthmark
across the back of the neck. Were we
sitters for the oils of Hans Holbein,
heads removed on the whims of a king?

Susan Wilson

If you have any thoughts about this poem,  Susan Wilson   would be pleased to hear them