Clare of Assisi, Tonsured, Waiting on Francis

Poetry

Published July 1, 2023

           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

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.

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About the author

Jeannine M. Pitas

Jeannine M. Pitas is a teacher, poet, writer, Spanish-English literary translator, immigrant rights advocate, caregiving daughter of octogenarian parents, and cancer patient living in Pittsburgh. She teaches at Saint Vincent College, the oldest Benedictine institution of higher education in the United States, and serves on the editorial staff of Eulalia Books, a small press dedicated to publishing Latin American poetry in translation, and Presence: A Journal of Catholic Poetry, a Catholic literary journal. Her writing has appeared in U.S. Catholic, The Christian Century, America, and National Catholic Reporter.

About the author

Lisa Raatikainen

Lisa Raatikainen is a writer and music teacher who holds degrees in biology and religion. Her work has appeared in, or is forthcoming with Eunoia Review, U.S. Catholic, and elsewhere. She lives in Burlington, Vermont with her family.