Click above to listen to a feature review on TRILL & MORDENT, written by Lisa Murray for the local NPR station; her review ran on March 31, 2006

Poems

TROUSSEAU

At my first wedding, I was the central
witness: days before, they killed

three goats and singed their flesh
under the guava trees. Knives

dipped in rum sheared closer
to the spongy membranes later diced

with vinegar and shallots,
served warm, nearly raw.

The laughter and the clink of bottles
rose with the smoke and found

me in my hiding place. I wished
to sleep, never to return to this place

where I had voted yes to my own
undoing. But on the bed they’d lain

the trousseau as though it were another
body: veil and knotted rope of roses,

sheath of silk and tulle, waterfall
of orchids. Even I could fall

in love with such an absent
face. Framed in white, was it what

I kissed, as though it played
no part in this conspiracy?

From Trill & Mordent
© September 2005, by Luisa Igloria

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