Three Poems by Sonya Schneider

Climbing Out Windows

For a while, I dyed my hair henna red,
wore old man pants cut off at the knee

and spent all my babysitting money
on a pair of 8-eye Doc Martens

that I never broke in. My friends
ditched class to smoke out

behind the teriyaki joint
while the boys ollied off curbs,

trying to impress the popular girl,
whose belly button stud sparkled

like a star above her low-rise jeans.
Once, when I was sleeping over

at a friend’s, we climbed
out her window and walked toward

the boardwalk lights and the salty smell
of dead fish. When we ended up

at the star-studded girl’s apartment,
her dad and brother sat hunched

at a table, cleaning handguns
in a haze of pot smoke,

their talk hushed and angry.
I spent that night stoned and listening

to the sound of rags wiping metal,
trying to hide behind a mask

of mauve lipstick. But once I climbed
back through my friend’s bedroom

window, the fear I’d hid rushed in.
When sleep finally came, it was swift,

and in my dream, I learned
to walk through doors.

*

Family Tree

The fall of my Uncle Rick was not his love
of taxidermy, rather the way he cut
his three siblings from his rib.
My father found a starving cat hiding
under a dead woman’s bed.
He gave her to me wrapped
in a red blanket—I named her Rainbow.
I was twenty when Aunt Ti swallowed
a bottle of Haloperidol – the sound
of her hitting the kitchen floor
still rings in my ears. Once,
on a full moon, Mom hunted
for seashells in the Negev.
Now she tucks in my aging brother,
their bedrooms connected by a narrow hall.
Zede’s birth name was Shlomo,
meaning peaceable. He changed it to Allan
when he enrolled in the war.
His mother was short but had hands
the size of sunflowers. Bubby kept
kosher plates on the top shelf.
All four of their kids have dark brown hair,
but only one believes in God. He lives
in Omaha, where his dogs roam
the shallow hills of snow.
Sometimes I remember to gaze
at the stars, but I’m always disappointed
if I don’t see one shooting across the sky.
I expect to witness startling encounters.
Like the Twin Towers toppling
just blocks from my work.
People walked north that day,
stopping at corner markets
for toilet paper, beer and bread.
I remember with crystalline detail
the time I met a clairvoyant,
but I don’t recall what she foretold
about my future.

*

My daughter explains the patriarchy

to my other daughter on the drive home from the beach.
The patriarchy is a society led by men, she says,
in which, sadly, women
are not allowed to hold power –
this is most societies.
I’ve never told them about the time my boss
pushed me against the wall, his breath reeking
of tuna fish. He held me pinned for just under
a second, long enough for fear and betrayal,
those twins some ancient woman birthed
and has spent a lifetime paying for. That was the last day
I worked for him. On the ride home, my youngest
has to pee. I pull the car to the side of the road
and guide her behind a Douglas fir,
but she is afraid someone might see her.
I pull down my shorts and squat,
legs grounded, bottom back.
Let them look, I say. If they dare.
For the rest of the car ride, they stare quietly
out the window. They make me think of the sea
anemones we saw last summer, luminescent
creatures who’ve learned to guard themselves
against every unwelcome touch.

*

Sonya Schneider is a playwright and poet living in Seattle, WA. Her poetry can be found in Catamaran Literary Reader, SWWIM Every Day, West Trestle Review and Mom Egg Review, among others. She was a finalist for the 2022 New Letters Patricia Cleary Miller Award for Poetry and her micro chapbook, Hunger, was shortlisted for Harbor Review’s 2023 Jewish Women’s Prize. She is a graduate of Stanford University and Pacific University’s MFA in Poetry.