Leopold and Loeb

Yumin Shivdasani

“A 6-year-old-boy is justified in pulling the wings from a fly, if by so doing he learns that without wings the fly is helpless.”  - Nathan Leopold

Flies scream over the corpse for first taste.

By the caved-in skull,

Leopold’s eyeglasses rest in mud

spattered with blood where he brought down the chisel.

Above, vultures tumble from the skies,

at the hands of hunters who want to

know

        how it feels

        to control death in a barrel.

A young boy dashes into the junkyard.

        Leaping over the body he

snatches flies in handfuls and

                                                rips their wings out

                                                                                one after another –

the hunter lurking in the backwoods misjudges

shooting the boy, not the bird.

                                They rest in dirt, the enlightened.