Jewel Lake, December
Photograph by Massimo Barbieri
By Adora Svitak
Two months ago this lake was dry,
woods around it kindling
for fires that never came.
A bench for someone’s dead beloved. Mukul.
Sitting on opposite ends peeling tangerines.
A lone white egret bends to her reflection
in the shallow waters that lap at our feet.
The black-haired boy teases he’ll push me in,
roots of tall trees our elders snaking underfoot.
Did the namesake sit here, see this?
The hollowed-out log where turtles waddle out for sun,
quiet air combed through the teeth of conifers.
Adora Svitak is a San Francisco Bay Area-based writer. Her stories, poetry, and nonfiction have appeared in publications including Apogee Journal, 8Poems, BUST, the Huffington Post, and numerous others. Her book Speak Up! Speeches by young people to empower and inspire was published by Quarto in February 2020.
