Leonore Wilson is a professor of English and creative writing in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her poems have been published in such places as Quarterly West, Third Coast, Poetry Quarterly, English Journal, Iowa Review, Upstreet, etc.

Leonore has won fellowships and literary awards for her writings in both prose and poetry.

Her historical ranch and home burned down in the recent lightning wildfires of Northern California.

Wild Ducks

God of mercy, god of light
Giving us a sign against the strip
Of creek in April,
The water these fowl leave
Sudden lightning strike
Of silver lace designed to make our hearts
Quiver for no more desire’s
Raking wind, no more making love
On the fieldstone bed,
In meadows, on narrow
Animal trails, no more recklessness
No more of the mortal breathing
In and out of the forest light,
Where we laughed
Like demon children, hiding
From the their mother calling out–
Oh the scent of sweet laurel
That would cover us, the pungent leaves
And didn’t we glimpse the pearl string
Of jellied eggs in the loose moss beneath
The water willow.
Now the wild ducks, the unrest
Of their errands, the fierce will
Of time’s great flurry saying
Female, isn’t it easier to forget, forget
Forget.