JENNIFER SHNEIDERMAN - POEMS

Jennifer Shneiderman is a writer and a Licensed Clinical Social Worker living in Los Angeles. Her work has appeared, or is forthcoming, in many publications, including Indolent Book’s HIV Here and Now, The Rubbertop Review, Writers Resist, Variant Literature, Awakened Voices, GreenPrints, Bright Flash Literary Review, Prospectus, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily,The Daily Drunk, The Perch and Angel City Review. She was the recipient of an Honorable Mention in the 2020 Laura Riding Jackson poetry competition.

​MARVIN

LA gem marvin café sending persuasive emails glorious menus chicken parmesan sandwiches with fries pot au chocolat venmo because that’s how you pay in a pandemic just swing by at dinnertime but it’s may 30 protests got big then huge then violent owners keeping watchful eye waitress kelly needs a ride home i give my address close by she can wait on my covered porch for her boyfriend she doesn’t call or come it gets dark then fires, shattered glass restaurant/neighborhood/city/state/country in ruins natural outcome to festering disease. That’s how you pay in a pandemic. 
​

THE BLESSING OF A PANDEMIC BLACKOUT
​

Blackout
pandemic people are home
under orders
overloaded 
nerves stretched and strained
like the city’s archaic grid.

Am I really Safer at Home 
with my shaky hands lighting candles? 

Sweating like my precious freezer cache of supplies 
glaring at cavalier, anti-maskers.
walking off frustration 
in the waning Los Angeles light.

Finally, a glimmer of gratitude. 
I am surrounded 
by majestic palms
elegant Spanish Revival homes
fortunate for the temporary nature of my solitude.
Some people live their whole lives alone, in the dark.

​