A Brief History of Schnickelfritz by Penelope Moffet

My mother named her Schnickelfritz,
mischievous child. A gray tabby
who hummed the world to sleep
with her sweet purr.

One of the pets who lived with us
until we moved and left them.
We moved a lot.
We shed those cats like fleas

and then hatched more. I swore
I’d care for future felines
their whole lives. The two
I live with now are 17 and 15

but they still whisk around
like Schnickelfritzes,
pratfalls and all. They bless me
with their biscuit-making paws.



Penelope Moffet is the author of the 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 and essays appear in Eclectica, ONE ART, Citric Acid, Calyx and other literary journals.