76
2016
NORTH CAROLINA L I T E R A R Y RE V I E W
FINALIST, 2015 JAMES APPLEWHITE POETRY PRIZE BY PEG BRESNAHAN
The Presence of Wonder
Come out here. Look at the constellations, how the sky weeps stories that mirror our own. Or the crescent moon cradling a shadowed pearl called earthshine. I’m not sure I know what I’m talking about, but I love the idea I can see moon’s back. Who knows what she’s hiding? Last week I spotted a pouch suspended from a low laurel branch, half an inch of water in its egg-sized tear. I marked it with a tepee of sticks, clicked a photo, sent it to everyone I knew. Sunday, I led our congregation to a Luna Moth and a cluster of Imperials. Wind wrinkled the Luna’s sleeves as it clung to a pine window frame. The yellow and brown Imperials gilded a path like autumn leaves.
PEG BRESNAHAN graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and received her MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts in Montpelier. She moved to Cedar Mountain, NC, from Sturgeon Bay, WI, twelve years ago. Her second collection of poetry, In a Country None of Us Called Home, was published by Press 53 in 2014. Garrison Keillor read the title poem on The Writer’s Almanac. Peg’s recent poems have appeared in Press 53 Open Awards Anthology; What Matters, published by Jacar Press; Kakalak, an anthology of North and South Carolina poets now published by The Main Street Rag; The Southern Poetry Anthology; Southern Poetry Review; and South Carolina Review.