ELIZABETH KNAPP, HUNTER'S MOON (Issue 17)

HUNTER'S MOON, GETTYSBURG

​

I could have believed anything
            that night, on that one-lane
                        country road, the battlefield
            alive with shadows, outlines
                        of worm fences where X

marks the spot, cupolas
            of blackened barns, & beyond,
                        the far slope of Cemetery Hill,
            where ghost troops huddled
                        under the broken moonlight,

& the wind made anguished
            sounds with its breath. Yes,
                        it was still possible for the world
            to surprise me, or rather, it was
                        still possible to surprise myself,

even there, waist-deep

            in the trenches, but crawling
                        my way out, up along the ravaged
            hillside, to where, from a distance,
                        the carnage looked gorgeous.

ABOUT THE POET

Elizabeth Knapp is the author of The Spite House (C&R Press, 2011), winner of the 2010 De Novo Poetry Prize. Her work has recently appeared or is forthcoming in 32 Poems, Beloit Poetry Journal, Kenyon Review Online, The Massachusetts Review, and Quarterly West, among others. She teaches at Hood College in Frederick, MD.

ABOUT SUGAR HOUSE REVIEW

We’ve loved reading the work that we’ve published (clearly), so now we want an opportunity to better hear our contributors. We will feature an audio recording of a poem from one of our seven issues, read by the poet and updated every couple of weeks. This an open invitation to all contributors from any of our issues, we were delighted to print your work, now we’re eager to hear it.