Clare of Assisi, Tonsured, Waiting on Francis

           Scalp stripped—
                      gold crown
strewn on cold stone
Three days hence in her cell
she can’t help again but stroke the bare nape
                      soft soft soft soft
sickle edge of a memory silking
           her young fingers—
           shorn lamb     she kissed in the budding field
                      lanolin and sheep’s milk
           such sweetness in his smell
A color like new grass
swells in her
subsides
           swells again
—Where is he?
How close they stood that dawn—breath hitched
           His rough hands
so delicately
whetting the blade

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This poem also appears in the July 2023 issue of U.S. Catholic (Vol. 88, No. 7, page 8). Click here to subscribe to the magazine.