Transmigration Poem by Sheena Blackhall

I might have been the favourite wife
Of the Emperor Valerian

I'm so corybantic
I might have been Isadora Duncan

Perhaps I was the queen in a hive
Mobbed by slavish admirers

I might have been the Victoria Falls
Thundering down the gullet of the world

I might have been a toad
Studying the cosmos of a stone

Maybe I was Beethoven's chamber pot
Or a barn owl's right eye

On the other hand, I might have been a leech
On the leg of David Livingstone
An octopus's inkwell
The knob on a 1950s radio

And then again
I might have been an Irish Sheela-na-gig

Here's looking at you, kid