Waves
–for Meridel Le Sueur
Midwest heat, so thick.
The night before we meet
thunder rolls and rain pours down.
The electricity goes out
at the JR Ranch Motel
where I sit on a screened porch
breathing fresh-washed earth.
Hudson, Wisconsin, 1988.
I’m here to interview a poet
old as the century, a storyteller,
a radical who roamed the country
all her life. Now a broken hip
keeps her in a wheelchair
in her daughter Rachel’s home.
I did not know the energy
could just pour out of you
like emptying a cup, she says.
I pose questions that she bats away
like blackflies. She has no patience
with chronology, how she “spent”
her time. That’s another
linear concept, she says.
With lovers, do you “spend” time?
It’s a bargaining phrase.
Do we spend time at all?
Rachel wanders through the room.
She’s asking about my marriages,
Meridel says. They roll their eyes.
Then she answers
questions I never asked
while waves of light
pour through her.
Penelope Moffet is the author of three chapbooks, most recently Cauldron of Hisses (Arroyo Seco Press, 2022). Her poems and essays appear in Eclectica, ONE ART, Citric Acid, Calyx and other literary journals. A full-length collection of her poetry will be published by Sheila-Na-Gig Editions in 2026. She lives in Southern California.
