Second Chances

“Ping!” cries the gold coin

as it clanks on the ground.

My eyes are not yet open

but my ears are.



Skin that shriveled and rotted long ago

is fresh with a new glow

as my once crystallized blood –

more sour than the Dead Sea –

flows with a renewed vigor.



A queen lost to the fickle memory

of time’s wheel

can feel once more;

but I am a queen no longer,

for I sit in my sarcophagus,

a stranger in an even stranger land,

with not a penny to my name,

save for the gold coins with which my people

buried me.



But now a name I cannot even claim

for I have no memory of ever existing,

only tangible proof that I sit here

shrouded in cloth, crunchy from the stale air

of my tomb.



And as my eyes suffer the harsh glare

of the afternoon sun,

I notice a miniature coffin next to me…



…and a lonely tear falls

while the memories rush back

as swift as the color rushes to my cheeks

and I clutch my womb,

knowing my tomb’s companion

ensured my one-way passage to the afterlife.



Troubled,

I peer into the little open sarcophagus

to see a smiling baby boy;

and I no longer care

how we ended up here,

because we’ve been granted a second chance.