cicada elegy
by Connor Beeman
I had an older cousin who liked to pull the legs off cicadas
still buzzing and alive. the dead ones wouldn’t do. after,
he would move onto the head—pried it loose like a jar.
this, at least, he made quick. a perfected twist.
we were on the island, lonely against
the wide lake. it was July, or maybe August,
and it was hot. there wasn’t much to do,
and I too hated the cicadas—their buzzing,
their red bulging eyes, the litter of their bodies.
I would like to have been more afraid of killing,
to say I told him to stop. instead, I watched him
pluck legs free like eyelashes. I helped him find fresh
exoskeletons in the driveway, still squirming. I told him,
this time, start with their wings.