The beetle in the rose brings news of God.
His hunger for beauty will kill us all.
In summer heat, in the plot of my small
yard’s garden, I opened the yellow bud

like an envelope. Inside, a golden scarab—
Japanese, white-tufted as a zebra’s coat,
it crouched like a crab in the rose’s throat
and flamed its copper wings like a hammered cherub.

The beetle ate all day. Insatiable, it slit
petal from stem and stigma from style.
The flower was dead by dark. Defiled,
its petals dripped like yellow spit,

as a thousand larvae squirmed beneath the sod.
If you’ve understood, it is not God.

 

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Will Brewbaker is a PhD candidate in English at Duke University. His poetry has appeared in the Yale Review, Gettysburg Review, and Mark, among others.

 

Image: James Read. Unsplash, 2026.