There is the mythology of birthmarks that they
Represent your past lives’ ends, how you met
Your maker at the edge of the field.

What do mine say about me? My stomach
Dyed brown from a stab wound in feudal Spain,
A domestic dispute over the manzanilla olive.

Or what of the matching café au lait splotches
On both my upper knees? Groveling on scorched
Stone steps before any Athenian god who listened.

How about the mark on my neck, just above
The clavicle? Some warrior in southern Asia’s
Attempt to open my airways one last time.

The shape of a butterfly on my right forearm
Lingering from the bite of a magnificent
African giant swallowtail.

I do not think I would have minded death
Like this, to be taken out by beauty and
Its natural bend toward pain and destruction.

But then there is that pinprick point
Of a freckle on the inside of my finger, the
One that bares no jewelry. What is that?

Did you find me in a past life and poison
A hidden needle in your ring, the one only
You could have given as a promise of forever?

Did I inspire fairy tales of sleeping
Women trapped in castles waiting for you
To come back and kiss me to life again?

I suppose I died of a broken heart that
Spread from my interdigital webbing, the
Tragic fact being I know even if

You had told me that ring came with
Such a price, I would have worn it anyway
Because you had asked me to.

– Savannah S. Miller