Trota Prepares a Fumigation
Twelfth-century Salerno
One neighbor has come to me, swathed
in her cloak and veil blue as the sea.
She begs me to provoke
bleeding from her stopped womb. I grind
madder and marsh mallow. I mix
the paste with egg whites and flour,
pat it into small cakes. Another neighbor
knocks upon my door for her
bleeding has not ceased for forty days
or nights and no dove has returned
with branch in beak. I instruct her, so worried and
weak, to come back with a pair
of old shoes. We take their soles
and cook them with laurel
and pennyroyal to make a fumigation.
When it burns off, we collect
the ashes and blend them with hot, red
wine from Salerno’s vineyards. This
we take and twist in a square of linen. After it
has cooled a bit, I insert it into her womb
with as much gentleness as I can muster.
I send her home with spikenard and clove.