Three poems by Louisa Schnaithmann

Driving Through Penn Valley On Our Way To View An Apartment

The rain comes

down in drenches, swells

the banks of green

streams below

us. You swear

you aren’t nervous. I sweat,

hold the inside of the car door,

white-knuckled.

My hands ache

and I almost retch.

Flashers on, plowing

through waters dark

and thick with dirt—

This is how you show

your love for me. Little

dangerous acts, a way

into my heart, an opening

to make my life crack

wide and burst

like the walls holding

the Schuylkill back.

Daughter as Caught Object

There is a box.

You must fit

yourself into

each corner, slide

your elbows in

until they line

up with the bottom.

Your legs don’t

dare dangle over

the lip. Instead, make

certain that they are

snug inside.

You will sit here,

shoved into complacency.

The box will grow smaller.

You will grow small, too,

if you don’t fight your

way out.

Little Darlings

After Sylvia Plath and Alberto Rios

The rabbits come quick.

Flames like blood on their

fur, the redness impenetrable

and exhausting, they sprint

through brush.

Traps are nothing to them now.

But still. But still. The caught foot,

the tear, then the real blood

that comes like a god in vengeance.

I was caught once too.

And you were a thoughtful jailor,

the kind that keeps and keeps.

I was not a rabbit, though.

I was not on fire.

The trap you made for me

didn’t rip my foot to shreds.

Instead, I’m still here.

Alive, a little darling made

of my life, a rising up,

a grateful fleeing.

Louisa Schnaithmann is the author of Plague Love from Moonstone Press. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Beltway Poetry Quarterly, The Mantle, Rogue Agent, and Gargoyle, among others. She is the consulting editor for ONE ART: a journal of poetry and lives in Philadelphia.