Trousseau

 
I heard someone say torch, and recalled
my friend's story about how, when her sister

was married, her new husband gathered all
her underwear and threw it into the fire.

This was supposed to show how his passion
for her meant all other loves before him

were to be incinerated. Some words eclipse 
others in the wake of their arrival.

She received new ones, cotton and silk, 
handpicked by him. There are other ways 

in which partnerships become proclamations—
a binding with rings, an annexation with names. 

What did our mothers surrender besides what fell 
away like leaves, like trees stripped of bark.