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.