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.