Ripe by Penelope Moffet

Gravenstein apple
fresh-fallen
from a tree,
so tart-sweet
I ignore the tunnels
left by worms
who also love
this taste,
breathe deep
where bees
conduct business
among daisies
near a green
clawfoot tub
that will call me later
to steep under stars
near bats and frogs.
No one is luckier
than I am,
to have lived this long,
to have wandered
among sand dunes,
seagulls, ravens, crabs
and barnacles
quick-flicking
their black feet
as waves caress
and leave them.
Afternoon light
licks maple leaves,
a cool wind
stirs the ferns.
How strange
yet how ordinary
so late in my life
this flowering,
this fruit,
every bite
delicious.



Penelope Moffet is the author of two chapbooks, most recently It Isn’t That They Mean to Kill You (Arroyo Seco Press, 2018). Her poems have been published in Gleam, One, Natural Bridge, Permafrost, Pearl, The Rise Up Review, The Sow’s Ear Poetry Review, The Ekphrastic Review, Verse-Virtual, The Missouri Review and other literary journals.