“The Floating Clares” by Josephine LoRe
Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. Read “The Floating Clares” by Josephine LoRe, part of the League’s Fresh Voices program.
The Floating Clares
By Josephine LoRe
every few years this river
overflows its banks, washing
like a benediction onto the monastery
green and black scars
of mould and must still mark
its highlines on the nave
did the good sisters
in brown robes and white wimples
wade in these unholy waters
swim up to the altar
to receive their wafer of communion
on quivering tongue
float away after confession
washed forever clean
of their imagined sin
Copyright ยฉ Josephine LoRe
Josephine LoReโs poetry has been read on stage, published in literary journals and anthologies in nine countries and five languages, put to music, danced, integrated into visual art, and globally zoomed. She has four collections: Unity, Calgary Herald bestseller The Cowichan Series, Alberta BPAA bestseller In My Fatherโs House, and newly published The Moon and All Her Faces. Josephine was nominated for the 2025 Pushcart Poetry Prize.
Fresh Voices is a publication and workshop program created by and for the League’s associate members, curated and edited by Erin Vance.
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