Undercover
The yoga studio on Chicago Ave
has a Palestinian flag behind the reception,
next to a keffiyeh, next to a cut-out
of a watermelon. The teacher sits behind the
desk, smiles at me. Later she will adjust
my shoulders, rub lavender on my neck,
speak in a lulled voice in a dark room of
strangers. Perhaps she’ll figure out
my secret, she’ll hear about the two
Jewish kids getting jumped outside the
student center, the synagogue-goer
shot the week before, some might
say targeted attacks, some might say
hate crimes, some might say
isolated incidents, there are no
isolated incidents, there is only
never again, I should be out there,
saying something, I should be out there,
doing something, freeing hostages,
ending war, not lying here,
legs up the wall, pretending
to be nobody
~
Underground
The night the hostages were murdered / you too were underground / dancing some American city / landlocked / pop punk / emocore / some club / some bar / something small / you mouthed the words / & drank too slow / & fell too fast / & felt too much / but // say you were happy / say, gliding across some floor / say pressing against some body / thinking of some crush / you were being crushed / somewhere underground / you were mouthing / something terrible / singing into strangers’ mouths / staring at the cold / hard / light / raising limbs toward light / singing to the ceiling / flying on the floor / you were lying on the floor / you were being crushed / you were thinking of some crush / you were some small, sad thing / & there were reasons to feel small / & there were reasons to feel sad / & you were only one of them / all-knowing / oh-so-lovely / just waiting for a stranger / wanting what everyone wants /
~
Shabbat in Nachlaot
Nachlaot, Jerusalem
We sway in the garden,
all survivors of something.
There’s been another shooting,
they say, but the songleader
doesn’t know, there is God
in her eyes, she is happy, or
so they say, turned away from
the chatter of the week, her
slice of Eden, the corner of this
neighborhood, where the stones
carry the sheen of someone else’s
story, where the trees are light
on the wind, where the birds sing
with gentle knowing, and they
carry on like this, and I carry this,
this knowing, seven dead,
that holy number, this holy ground,
and I don’t want to break it to her,
singing, chanting, delighting
in the gratitude of this garden.
_______
Originally from New Jersey, Kayla Schneider-Smith received her MFA in Writing from the University of San Francisco. Her poetry and articles have appeared in The Times of Israel, Minyan Magazine, Write-Haus, Invisible City, and The Jewish Writing Project. Kayla currently works as a university chaplain and professor in Chicago, IL.