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NORTH CAROLINA L I T E R A R Y RE V I E W
Winter 2025
2024 JAMES APPLEWHITE POETRY PRIZE FINALIST BY LUCINDA TREW
requiem for June bugs and dying young listen to this funeral march of beetle carcass, a dirge underfoot as we walk away from the squandering of summer days and nights and those drawn to light, the art of making love and lace of leaves, feasting their way through fig and pear, potted palm all the tender mercies of solstice months ravenous beasts that began as pearly curls of grub Lazarus rising from earth, now exhausted shell and shadow a maraca parade of what’s delivered and done, dragon tail sweeping confetti debris – mardi gras streamers, fluorescent green wing, purple sheen, gold spangle trim of spilled entrails, the cast-off beads of debauchery and of dying young, empty cups and dreams, rusted rings and whispers a swirl of what’s lost along the way, brass horns bleating the call to come, to leave, in release of what was or wasn’t meant to be, a June that came early, eager for May’s promise of leaf and shoot, temptations of flesh and fruit and falling to the timpani of August when scarab armor is cast away and all that remains are the ruins of revelry
LUCINDA TREW is a poet and essayist whose work has appeared in Bloodroot Literary Magazine, The POET magazine, Cathexis Northwest Press, MockingHeart Review, storySouth, Eastern Iowa Review, and other journals and anthologies. The poet is a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, and she won Boulevard Magazine’s 2023 Poetry Contest for Emerging Poets.