Souvenirs

At sixteen, my mother gave me a carnelian ring 
she once traded for a pack of filterless Gaulloises. 
Years later, a brazen burglar slipped it through my closet 
window. On the eve of our wedding, my husband presented 
me with a platinum necklace, and the next day, I lost it 
somewhere in my bridal suite. I planted my daughter’s placenta 
under an Abe Lincoln rose, only to move miles from that lush 
garden. I almost never wonder how the flowers fare, 
even though their roots are fertilized in our blood. 
On a trip to Patagonia, I snuck an igneous rock 
into my suitcase because it reminded me of time.
My father cemented it in a bathroom that later caught fire. 
Isn’t that what souvenirs do? Capture our desire to say, 
Here. This. Now. Keep our treasures from burning.

SONYA SCHNEIDER

Sonya Schneider is a playwright and poet whose poetry can be found in Rattle, The Penn Review, Potomac Review, Raleigh Review, Rust & Moth, Salamander, SWWIM, Tar River, Whale Road Review, and elsewhere. A graduate of Stanford and Pacific University’s MFA program in poetry, she lives in Seattle with her family.