New Albion
By Leonore Wilson
Who goes to Drake’s Bay now,
it’s way too far to get to; roads twist
through whipping tule grass
like an African savannah.
Imagine here in the Golden State
something so blasted, unwanted,
unplanned that even the pregnant proprietor
of the coffee shop has the weathered face
of an ancient ewe.
This is Lilith’s habitat, strand all stripped,
coastal waves with conjuring tricks, place
where even Ophelia could wallow,
where dunes copulate with dunes, a site
where one could make diabolical pacts,
not sacred by any means, not domestic
like Inverness or Point Reyes.
Here a subversion of order for a confederation
of witches where currents of El Nino
wreck the shore, where atoms whirl and haunt
like a scorpion, serpent, leopard, wolf.
This my church of grunt and groan,
inglorious rapture of my Eden.
Leonore Wilson is a college English and creative writing teacher from Northern California. She is on the MFA Board at St Mary’s College of California. Her poetry books are Western Solstice (Hireath Press) and Tremendum, Augustum (Kelsey Press). Leonore’s work has been in The Iowa Review, Third Coast, Prairie Schooner, Quarterly West, Upstreet, Madison Review, Laurel Review, Pif, etc. Her historic cattle ranch and family home in Napa Valley were recently destroyed in the LNU fire.
