Founded in the fall of 1991, Laurel Moon is Brandeis' oldest, national literary publication. Each issue we publish features original work from undergraduate students.
Comet NEOWISE was first discovered by astronomers in March 2020 using a telescope of the same name. In July 2020, it reached its closest distance to the sun, allowing it to be visible by the naked eye from the Northern Hemisphere throughout the month. It’s the brightest comet in twenty-three years, and it’s estimated that it won’t be this close and visible for another 6,800 years.
What do you call a celestial body
that comes only once
every seven thousand years? I call it a teenage girl. Each
June, hydrangeas bloom quietly along the shore,
those steady flowers like galaxies of summer
hope. Once, my dad pissed
in our garden trying to make those flowers turn
fuschia-pink. Once, I grew up
in a small town where boys took me
on drives in their used cars, peeled
petals from my body to see if I loved them.
If they seduce me hard, I’ll turn
that same shade of shy magenta. I would like to ask
Icarus: did it hurt
when you burned, or did you
finally feel seen?
No, I know the answer. Once, I stayed
out with a man four years
my senior, and I told him about my favorite constellations. He
opened me, breathed down
my neck, and I felt NEOWISE up
my spine as I briefly blossomed, a burning beam
of glimmering girlhood before disappearing
in the dark.
Brigid Regan McCarthy is a sophomore studying English and Hispanic Studies at Davidson College. There, she is the Editor-in-Chief of the student newspaper and soon-to-be-founder of the creative nonfiction magazine.