Stuttering Breath by Penelope Moffet

Rhythmic sweep of the sprinkler
in early morning,
stuttering breath as it swipes
across ragged grass,
honeysuckle, ladders leaning on
the weathered termite-bitten
wood of the garage wall.
Too early for the wet
heat to rise, the unseasonal
moisture in the air, here
at the brink of summer,
the stepping-off
from glorious bloom
to drying-out.

On the road north,
golden grasses mix with
chartreuse growth and,
a little higher,
clefts and hills carpeted
with gray-green chaparral
and upthrust spikes
of Spanish Bayonet,
Our Lord’s Candle.
Sunflowers nod godheads
in ditches by the road.
A careless or deliberate light
tossed from a car
and all of it would burn.
I tell myself
I’m done with fear.



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, among them One, ONE ART, Natural Bridge, Gleam: Journal of the Cadralor, and The Rise Up Review.