Penelope Moffet: Simple As / Inexplicable / Moondust 

The only way to make two
thank-you apple pies at once –
for the park ranger who hiked out
to look for me, for the firemen

who manned the helicopter
and the ambulance – is one
at a time, because each pie
requires two crusts

and I can only mix and shape
and roll out so much
flour and salt and corn oil
and cold water at once,

and each pie needs a whole
bowl of chopped-up apple,
honey cinnamon cloves cornstarch
butter or margarine

dash of kosher salt. It’s more tiring
than an all-day hike, worrying
I’ll do it wrong, get lost, my crusts
will fail, and one does, fissuring

as it comes off the wax paper
and then I have to patch it up
as best I can with bits
of trimmed-off dough, though

maybe I should just have mushed
a new ball, rolled it out again,
retreated down the creek instead
of scrambling up the mountain,

been sensible enough to backtrack
to the fork instead of getting
stranded in the dark, all
muddled up and waiting to be eaten.

~

Pitch-dark canyon far below,
lighter charcoal of the hill
I climbed to stand
propped by hiking sticks, waiting.

Wind tousling grasses
robbed of color. No moon yet
and no stars, sky dimly lit
by distant city glow.

Cobalt limbs of leafless
trees and shrubs I think
I’ll shelter under, sure
no one can find me in the dark.

How could I end up here
after hiking a trail I’ve
visited for 30 years, crossing
and recrossing the stream

that carves a new path
every winter, coming out
in late afternoon
and taking a wrong turn,

going up a dead-end feeder creek
thinking, as the light slipped,
I should climb for new perspective
and in case more rain swept down,

flooding the watershed?
I went up a dry,
nearly vertical wash,
grasping plants, digging my

hiking poles and boots
into clumps, pushing myself
backward on my butt when
I couldn’t face forward,

earth crumbling. At some point
I realized I could not descend.
Maybe I talked to myself
as I went up up up,

maybe I thought if I got
high enough I’d reach
a road, a path, another way
a person could walk out of there.

~

I want rescue
but also wonder
what I’ll see
if I stay out to dawn.

Cell phone flickering toward
extinction, swept in circles
according to instructions
when the teams fly near.

Between calls from
the emergency dispatchers,
all that dark beauty.
Then a spotlight finds me.

A man in a spacesuit
spins out on a cable
thin as a spider’s filament,
the chopper’s wind

kicking up moondust
as he scrambles for footing,
pulls off his helmet, walks
toward me, grins.

He straps me in a harness,
takes me into the night sky
toward heaven’s roar,
my eyes shut tight.

~

Poem copyright 2026 Penelope Moffet

Penelope Moffet is a poet and nonfiction writer based in Los Angeles. She is the author of 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). A new collection of her poetry will be published by Sheila-Na-Gig Editions this fall.