Poems by Allison Luterman

Jewel Lake, 1994

by Allison Luterman

From Canary Summer 2024

Alison lives on unceded Ohlone land near the Peralta, Lion and Sausal Creeks, about fifteen minutes down the hill from Redwood and Joaquin Miller Parks, where she hikes often.

I used to take the neighborhood kids
up to the Little Farm in Tilden Park,
back in the nineties,
after I'd split from my first husband.

The cow was massive and calm.
she chewed her cud, she ruminated,
extending her long rolling tongue
which was a brownish purple, rutted as an old road.

It terrified five-year-old Patty who clung to my waist
while the goats butted up against the fence, slot-eyed and voracious.
Abraham tickled their noses with long blades of grass.
I told him not to tease them, so he did it some more.

I have no pictures from those days--I didn't
own a camera, and there was no husband or lover
off in the wings, framing shots. No cell phone with which
to snap a selfie, no Facebook to post to and say Look at us!

Sometimes we went to Jewel Lake and waded in,
letting minnows nibble the fine hairs on our calves.
No one knew where we were or cared.
I ventured deeper and deeper and stared

at my wavering reflection in green water.
Nothing buzzed or pinged in my pocket.
All was quiet save for the shouts of the children
skipping stones and scaring the fish.

First published in Catamaran Literary Reader