Abstract
5-brane configurations describing 5d field theories are promoted to an M-theory description à la Witten in terms of polynomials in two complex variables. The coefficients of the polynomials are the Coulomb branch. This picture resolves apparent singularities at vertices and reveals exponentially small corrections. These corrections ask to be compared to world line instanton corrections. From a different perspective this procedure may be used to define a diagrammatic representation of polynomials in two variables.