ONE ART’s Top 10 Most-Read Poets of September 2025
Tag: Penelope Moffet
Flight Risk by Penelope Moffet
Flight Risk
So you’ve packed up some books to send
to friends – a great Calyx issue, your favorite
Marge Piercy – and now your heart clutches,
says Unwrap them, put them back on their shelves,
and it’s only two books, so how can you think
you’ll easily release every treasured, eye-worn,
well-thumbed thing, ceramics chosen over decades
in thrift stores and at craft shows, mismatched, unchic
but yours, the etched brandy snifter from your nephew’s
wedding, the blue and purple hatchetfish painting
by your mother, a friend’s charcoal sketch of oaks,
the Queen Anne chairs with high curved backs
and hoof-like feet, the hummingbird-patterned
cotton sheets on your sleep number bed,
50 years of manuscripts and journals,
this high-ceilinged third-floor place you bought
in 2010, first and only home you’ve ever owned,
the furry orange being who lives with you
and oh – the people you might never see again –
how could you think you could let all of this go
if you must flee the country you were born in,
the land you love, the place you used to think you knew?
*
Penelope Moffet’s most recent chapbook is Cauldron of Hisses (Arroyo Seco Press, 2022). Her poems have appeared in ONE ART, Calyx, Willawaw, Nerve Cowboy, Red Eft Review and other literary journals. She has poems upcoming at Sheila-Na-Gig Online, Eclectica, Silver Birch Press and an anthology of Southwestern writers to be published by Dos Gatos Press. A full-length collection of her poetry will be published by Sheila-Na-Gig Editions in 2026. She lives in Southern California.
A Talking-To by Penelope Moffet
A Talking-To
The citronella is in bloom again, pale
pink flowers the hummingbirds prefer
to the sugar-water feeder. Some smaller
thing, a wasp or bee, is at them
now, mumbling at the petals.
As if paralyzed I sit and look
at silhouettes. Plants, crows,
bugs, gardeners, my neighbor
walking his special-needs German
shepherd back and forth below.
Mind full of memories.
Shake them off, like a fearful
dog who forgets himself, runs
into a stream and out again,
droplets vibrating from his fur.
*
Penelope Moffet lives in Southern California, where she writes, draws and strives to keep her 18-year-old cat happy. Her most recent chapbook is Cauldron of Hisses (Arroyo Seco Press, 2022). She was nominated for a Pushcart Prize by ONE ART and has been awarded residencies at Dorland Mountain Arts, The Mesa Refuge, the Helen R. Whiteley Center and Alderworks Alaska. Her poems appear in Eclectica, Calyx, New Verse News and other journals. A full-length collection of her poetry will be published by Sheila-Na-Gig Editions in 2026
Two Poems by Penelope Moffet
Waking
For Lynn Way
He didn’t like to wake up in the dark.
He needed light to seep in through the blinds.
Waking in the night was waking in prison,
mind and body pinioned to the bed.
He needed light to seep in through the blinds
or he woke into a nightmare from the past,
mind and body pinioned to the bed
beneath the car that crashed down a ravine.
He woke out of a nightmare of the past
into knowledge of the present, given light,
beneath the car that crashed down a ravine,
his arms still strong enough to lift himself.
In knowledge of the present, given light,
he could laugh, roll smokes, make love,
his arms still strong enough to lift himself,
swing his trunk and legs to the wheelchair.
He could laugh, roll smokes, make love
with his wild tongue, though nothing moved below,
swing his trunk and legs to the wheelchair,
roll forward into other rooms.
With his wild tongue, though nothing moved below,
he woke me from a too-long childhood,
rolled me into other rooms,
to pleasure so intense I levitated.
He woke me from a too-long childhood,
spoke to me of how he saw the world,
took me to pleasure so intense I levitated
then came to earth, and him, again.
He spoke to me of how he saw the world,
quoted the ancient Chinese poets,
then came to earth, and me, again.
He believed in nothing but erotic love.
He loved the ancient Chinese poets
and the spinning wood lathe in his shop.
He believed in nothing but erotic love,
relied on whisky and his work to get him through.
He loved the spinning wood lathe in the shop.
It was many years ago. I was so young.
He relied on whisky and work to get him through.
I’ve loved other men but now I sleep alone.
It was many years ago. I was so young.
Now waking in the night is waking in limbo.
I’ve loved other men but now I sleep alone.
I do not like to wake up in the dark.
*
A Friend for the Winter
The lizard moved indoors when the outside air
turned cold. He flickered here and there, found
hiding places in stacked wood, under the bed,
behind boxes. When sun came through French doors
he basked on the adobe floor, on gray days
calibrated his distance from the Franklin stove:
not too hot not too cold. Spiders, earwigs,
the last flies of autumn were his food.
Once those ran out he contemplated then ignored
carrot peel and broccoli florets that tumbled off
the cutting board. A friend to wild birds,
rosy boas, rattlers, the human didn’t mind
his presence, watched where she put her feet,
talked to him. They were a sort of family,
a mesh of solitudes. The weather warmed.
She left a door propped open.
Out he went for pushups on the stoop.
Quick as a flash a roadrunner was there
to grab him and run off.
*
Penelope Moffet is the author of three chapbooks, most recently Cauldron of Hisses (Arroyo Seco Press, 2022). Her poems appear in Eclectica, ONE ART, Calyx and other literary journals. A full-length collection of her poetry will be published by Sheila-Na-Gig Editions in 2026. A Pushcart Prize nominee, she lives in Southern California.
ONE ART’s 2025 Nominations for The Pushcart Prize
ONE ART’s 2025 Nominations for The Pushcart Prize
Kari Gunter-Seymour – A History of Fireworks
Ronda Piszk Broatch – The Only Dress You’ll Ever Need
Shawn Aveningo-Sanders – The Flyer
Penelope Moffet – Pirates
Olga Livshin – Blowout
T. R. Poulson – Treasure
*
Learn more about The Pushcart Prize.
Two Poems by Penelope Moffet
Pirates
I peel a banana, cut it into pieces
I can spear into my mouth on knife-tip
like a pirate, as my boss Max used to say,
laughing as he passed from his bear’s lair
through the outer office. Max is dead two years
and it’s the vernal equinox again. Hummingbirds
chase each other when I walk on ocean bluffs
wild with bush sunflowers – dark chocolate hearts,
banana-colored petals. I like my chocolate dark,
dark as those sunflower hearts, but Max loved
milk chocolate with orange centers.
The sweeter the better, he said.
Lilac blooms of low-growing ceanothus
vibrate with bees. Tiny lizards bask on dirt,
race off. While I breathe warm salty air
a friend stumbles, his head strikes concrete,
he’s taken to the E.R. with a deep gash in his scalp.
Max didn’t know his cancer would return.
People fall apart, even me, bumbling
on painful feet and knees. We’ll come back
not as ourselves but as young and healthy creatures
basking on dirt paths, frisking through the air,
as flowers that make other people think
bananas, chocolate, orange.
*
Keepsake
For Max Gest
The clock ticks softly
on the shelf below the TV
like a deathwatch beetle.
Late at night I hear it.
Round face full of Roman numerals,
rimmed with gold, set in mahogany,
it graced the law office desk
where I worked a quarter-century
until the boss died.
Huddled in dust,
the timepiece governs nothing
but summons Max,
who often forgot how well
his workers knew their jobs
but would stop lecturing
if I made him laugh.
In the heart of the pandemic
we kept the office going,
each laboring alone
through designated hours.
We spoke only on the phone.
More and more his voice
was wracked with coughing
as the tumors ate his lungs.
His hair grew long.
With a walker and an oxygen tank
he came in nights and weekends,
faithful as the clock that ruled my desk.
Once when I stayed late
and he came early
his smile was radiant,
the skin so taut across his face
it was like listening to a skull:
Every day I wake up
happy I’m still here.
I did not want the clock,
I turned it down three times
but on the last day
as workers came
to haul away boxed files,
donation piles and trash,
I put it in my bag.
It whispers to me
when the world is still.
*
Penelope Moffet is the author of three chapbooks, most recently Cauldron of Hisses (Arroyo Seco Press, 2022). Her poems have been published and are upcoming in many literary journals, including Calyx, Halfway Down the Stairs, ONE ART, Poemeleon, The Rise Up Review, Sheila-Na-Gig Online and Willawaw Journal. She has been awarded artist residencies at Alderworks Alaska, Dorland Mountain Arts, The Mesa Refuge and the Helen R. Whiteley Center. She lives in Los Angeles and has worked as a freelance journalist, a publicist for non-profits, an editor and a legal secretary.
Imaginal by Penelope Moffet
Imaginal
Now I must give up
the idea of you, who
with your gentle jokes
your bursts of passion
the unexpected sweetness of your notes
upended me. Never really here
although my home felt
habited by you, your spirit
has moved on
and I must close my door
because the door in you
has closed.
*
Penelope Moffet lives in Southern California. She is the author of three chapbooks, Cauldron of Hisses (Arroyo Seco Press, 2022), It Isn’t That They Mean to Kill You (Arroyo Seco Press, 2018) and Keeping Still (Dorland Mountain Arts, 1995). Her poems have been published in many journals, among them One by Jacar Press, ONE ART, Natural Bridge, Verse-Virtual, The Rise Up Review, The Ekphrastic Review and Sheila-Na-Gig. She has worked as a freelance journalist, a publicist for non-profits, an editor and a legal secretary. She is currently enjoying the freedom to do whatever she damn well pleases most days.
Evening Light by Penelope Moffet
Evening Light
It has been eighteen months
and still she weeps when she enters
the house of their happiness, ramshackle
low desert home that he owned, hers now.
This could go on for years although
she moves ably from task to task
except when grief stops her.
She does not sleep in his house
but stays at her own high desert home,
haven for fox and deer, white-crowned
sparrows and dark-eyed juncos,
on land as wild as she can keep it.
Only when she paints does sorrow leave her.
Then nothing exists except shapes and colors:
mountains layered in distance, evening
light, a spill of boulders, the cougar
who hunts on nearby hills,
scolded in daylight by ravens
who won’t let him rest.
*
Penelope Moffet is the author of three chapbooks, Cauldron of Hisses (Arroyo Seco Press, 2022), It Isn’t That They Mean to Kill You (Arroyo Seco Press, 2018) and Keeping Still (Dorland Mountain Arts, 1995). Her poems have been published in many journals, including One, ONE ART, Natural Bridge, Gleam, The Rise Up Review, The Sow’s Ear Poetry Review, The Ekphrastic Review and Gyroscope.
Letter to a Dead Husband by Penelope Moffet
Letter to a Dead Husband
You made me laugh
and you still do,
rising through my dreams
with salty one-liners,
your face tanned and ruddy
from whatever you’ve been doing
in the afterlife, there
with your strong hands
kneading bread or pasta
which you now make from scratch,
just as when I knew you
you’d spend whole days
simmering spaghetti sauce,
lentils suffused with ham hocks,
perfecting pesto
fit to serve with copious wine.
For you heaven would be
John Mayall and MC-5
amped up to eleven,
electric guitars and drums
blasting the whole neighborhood,
sweet as a room clogged
with the billowing scent of weed,
no one asking you to turn it down,
no one thinking you should shower,
drink some coffee, catch the bus to work,
restrain your scruffy beard, your wild hair-wisp,
your blue eyes beaming satire
at a too-straight world.
A medium summons up your presence
with exactitude, your manchild
dancing self who won’t shut up,
keeps elbowing back onto the stage
of K’s closed eyes.
My middle name is More.
Heaven is a place where
nothing ever happens,
she says you say.
This isn’t where I thought
I’d end up. I still exist.
I’m with everybody,
the cockroach
that ate Cincinnati
in the shitbox in the sky
with two cats, one meowing
like a human babe.
Prankster tiptoeing away
and sneaking back,
the way you left our marriage
bit by self-subtracted bit.
You moved to Ketchikan
for endless summer days
and winter nights
until your heart blew up,
destroyed by years of drink and fat
delectable to last bite and last drop.
You could live
on Cabernet and comic books,
vodka in the freezer,
bookcases full of Russian history,
pulling mussels from a shell,
telling me I’m lovely
just the way I look tonight,
blue eyes dancing
the better to seduce me with,
incorrigible and selfish
but then all men are selfish
K says you say
before you change into a hippo
twirling in a tutu, telling me
one day there’ll be another man
to cook with in a warm companionable nest.
I think it’s just a dream
the medium relates,
memories and feelings
flickering like electric lights.
And yet that scampering dervish she called up
resembles you, speaks as you would,
sings your songs.
If only I could blaze
with faith, believe you
different from the seal remains
I saw once on a northern island’s shore,
translucent rotting flesh
jittered by waves upon a beach,
almost a human shape,
all power gone.
How can anyone feel sure
the spirit slips its skin,
goes on in other form?
In the middle of the bay
a gray head broke the surface,
dark eyes looked toward me,
then it tucked its head,
it rolled, it dived.
*
Penelope Moffet is the author of three chapbooks, Cauldron of Hisses (Arroyo Seco Press, 2022), It Isn’t That They Mean to Kill You (Arroyo Seco Press, 2018) and Keeping Still (Dorland Mountain Arts, 1995). Her poems have been published in many journals, including The Missouri Review, Columbia, Permafrost, One, ONE ART, Natural Bridge, Gleam, The Rise Up Review, The Sow’s Ear Poetry Review, The Ekphrastic Review and Gyroscope. She has been the recipient of artist residencies at Dorland Mountain Arts, The Mesa Refuge, The Helen R. Whiteley Center and Alderworks Alaska. She has published articles in the Los Angeles Times, Publishers Weekly, Poets & Writers and elsewhere. She has also worked as a publicist for non-profit organizations, as a legal secretary, and as Senior Editor at the UCLA Center for the Study of Women.
Coyote Bush by Penelope Moffet
Coyote Bush
In the field also known as lawn
in front of the suburban house
I grew all manner of things
to the neighbors’ dismay –
cilantro near the curb, sage
and buckwheat and woolly blue curls
in the planter near the house,
creeping boobialla on the main lawn.
Near the sidewalk a coyote bush
formed a rising mound
about the length and shape
of a human grave.
The house was worn,
wood peeling from the front door.
A Mountain Ash
clung to the foundation,
threatened to fall over,
but the front yard glowed in spring:
lavender’s purple fingers,
woolly blue curls,
a volunteer wild rose,
creamy buckwheat flowers,
white whirls of black sage.
Indoors we moved like ghosts
through dim coolness.
I was more and more outside.
Whose body nourished
the coyote bush, what
dream was buried there?
*
Penelope Moffet is the author of three chapbooks, most recently Cauldron of Hisses (Arroyo Seco Press, 2022). Her poems have been published in One Art, Natural Bridge, Permafrost, One by Jacar Press, Gleam, The Rise Up Review, The Sow’s Ear Poetry Review, The Ekphrastic Review, Gyroscope and other literary journals. She has been the recipient of fellowships at Dorland Mountain Arts, The Mesa Refuge, The Helen R. Whiteley Center and Alderworks Alaska. She lives in Southern California.
Wolf by Penelope Moffet
Wolf
When I turned 50
Jane said, Watch out,
the long slide down
starts now. In my 50s
I let go of a love
that hurt too much,
turned toward peace.
When I reached 60
Jane said, Now
begins the slow
collapse. My 60s
have been solitude,
early risings, poetry,
work, long walks
and swims.
Now I’m 67
and Jane, at 80,
says, Soon,
very soon,
you’ll burn out
like a dwarf star
collapsing
under its own weight.
This comforts me.
Ten years from now
if we’re both still here
I know
what her forecast
will be.
*
Penelope Moffet is the author of three chapbooks, most recently Cauldron of Hisses (Arroyo Seco Press, 2022). Her poems have been published in Gleam, One Art, Natural Bridge, Permafrost, Pearl, The Rise Up Review, The Sow’s Ear Poetry Review, The Ekphrastic Review, Verse-Virtual, Gyroscope and other literary journals. She lives in Southern California.
Glimmers As They Go by Penelope Moffet
Glimmers As They Go
One by one
my linchpins
are subtracted,
leaving glimmers
as they go.
Pieces of jewelry,
pendants and earrings,
remind me of those who gave them:
Janet, Jeanie, Lynn,
Roger, Mom.
When I flash
their bits of brightness
at my throat, in ears,
do they gleam again,
those laughing ones?
I cling to them,
my wire turtles, beads,
abalone sweater clasps,
yellow corncobs of fertility,
rosewood amulet
that broke apart,
I shine them,
bring them often
into light.
*
Penelope Moffet lives in Southern California. Her poems have been published in One by Jacar Press, Gleam, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Sheila-Na-Gig and elsewhere. She is the author of two chapbooks, It Isn’t That They Mean to Kill You (Arroyo Seco Press) and Keeping Still (Dorland Mountain Arts).