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.