Red Trousseau: 2poems

Red--the color of eroticism, heat and danger--fills this provocative collection of poems by Muske ( Applause ). A murdered woman in ``a sunset-colored dress''; red mouths; stigmata; the sacred heart; Masai red beads; Chinese bridal gowns; scarlet flames around martyrs--red gives illumination as the poet focuses her lens on the beauty and horror of contemporary life. Muske's poetic scope ranges from her home city of Los Angeles, ``that famous city, city of fame, all trash and high / cheekbones, making itself up with the dreamy paints / of a First Stage Alert'' to Prague, where ``History, like a bus, stopped and let us off, / in a pool of some light substance'' and the poet sifts through the metaphorical ashes of Czech Jan Palach, who burned himself to death in protest against the 1968 Soviet invasion. Such mixed motivation for the desire for martyrdom serves as the theme again in the title poem, when the speaker ``suspected her mind of collaboration, / apperceptive ecstasy, the flames wrapped / about her like a red trousseau, yes, / the dream of immolation.'' In her weaker poems, Muske's fondness for finely incised indirection collapses into obscurity, and elliptical images evade and weary the reader. But in her best--e.g., the bold ``Frog Pond''--mannerism gives way to pure, taut style. (Mar . )