The Last Cicadas

by Genevieve Betts

The last cicadas thump and buzz
like a souped-up Cadillac.

They really are the most beautiful
plague. I too hum among their

windowpane wings, veined
like lace on whirring blades.

Sugar skulls commence their séance,
flicker pigments in candied ambiance.

The desert’s hot verve vacillates
at the last lurch of summer,

oases wavering in their distant trick
I fall for again and again.

About the author…

Genevieve Betts is the author of the poetry collection An Unwalled City (Prolific Press, 2015). Her work has appeared in The Tishman Review, New Mexico Review, Hotel Amerika, The Literary Review, and in other journals and anthologies. She teaches creative writing for Arcadia University’s low-residency MFA program and lives in Santa Fe.