Poem of the Week | April 20, 2026

Sonya Schneider’s poems can be found or are forthcoming in American Poetry Journal, Chicago Quarterly Review, The Penn Review, Potomac Review, Raleigh Review, Rattle, Salamander, Tar River Poetry, and elsewhere. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and she’s been a finalist for the Laux & Millar Poetry Prize and twice for the Patricia Cleary Miller Award for Poetry. A graduate of Stanford University and Pacific University’s MFA in poetry, she lives with her husband and daughters in Seattle, Washington.

“Mystery Hill” by Sonya Schneider is our Poem of the Week.

***

Mystery Hill

Are we going uphill or downhill? Mom asks.
Rooster Rock towers to our right, all jagged-toothed

basalt, hairy with pines. To our left, the Columbia River
portends her Gorge. We’re going downhill, I answer.

It seems obvious enough, though she’s clearly
up to something. My uncle, her younger brother,

opens the door to his apartment,
his corkscrew curls, now completely grey,

are weighed down with shower water.
The look in his eyes is one-third love,

two-thirds confusion. He asks, Have you been here before?
Below, on the river, colorful kiteboards whip

in the wind. Three times before, Mom answers.
We eat chicken sandwiches under a portico

wound by wisteria, flowers long spent,
dark green pods rocking gently above.
 
This is a good sandwich! he says,
then, What is it? as if he hasn’t heard

the answer before. He remembers his three wives,
scuba diving in the Red Sea, the waiter,

Edsel Fong, whom he befriended at Sam Wo’s,
but he can’t remember what sandwich he’s eating.

Later, in the small hospital room, a kind,
long-fingered doctor explains the diagnosis

is dementia, Alzheimer’s. My uncle hugs
his arms and asks about ways he might improve.

He holds his hand like an airplane taking off
to show the rise he means, but the doctor

slopes her hand like a plane aiming
for a crash landing, calls it a progressive disease.

Progression seems a funny way of putting it,
he laughs, though his eyes shine with tears.

We help him write reminders on butcher paper:
renew car registration, check credit cards

for hardship programs, buy napkins.
When he waves goodbye, he shouts,
 
Look at those beautiful clouds!
As we pass Rooster Rock on our left,
 
Mom asks, So, are we going uphill or downhill?
I should say uphill—abiding by the law of physics—

but my sense of gravity has upended. When I shrug,
she smiles. Good, I want you to be as perplexed as I am.

***

Author’s Note

A mystery hill, also known as a gravity hill, is an optical illusion where a slight downhill slope appears to be an uphill incline. I didn’t know these existed until a recent trip my mother and I took to visit my uncle in Hood River, Oregon. She’d driven this road with my father before, and they’d argued over which direction they’d been going. On our drive—which was scenically stunning—Mom kept asking me, “Up or down?” At first, I felt certain of my answer, but the farther we traveled, the more uncertain I became. Not until I got home and began writing this poem did I realize the parallels of this phenomenon with dementia, and with existence itself.

I’ve always been close to my uncle. He’s led a fascinating life, including running a nonprofit for peace in the Middle East and writing and starring in a one-man show about Abraham Lincoln. Twenty-two years ago, he officiated my wedding (he had my husband and me laughing and crying under the chuppah). Learning about his Alzheimer’s diagnosis and seeing its effects firsthand have been heartbreaking. But there is also so much of him that remains—his brilliant humor, curiosity, and love of nature. I think of the mystery of it every day.