We went
to watch the hawks
glow their side
of the enclosure

eyes wet from
looking, afterwards

in the museum
park I watched Lou

rub the lit
cigarette into her arm

sun spilling over
her face, knowing

she was blind
to me sometimes

you can look
and look


the trees the trees the black
and gold glassed-in air, museum
of monkey figurines and butterflies
gallery of important and iridescent
rocks the Jurassic spider the mastodon
marginalized birds of New York City,
taxidermied dove, sparrow & starling


not lifting
a hand to stop her

eyelashes winging
open as she looked

at the scar the eye
of the hawk turning


About this poem
"Observing an object or action exposed, something that is usually hidden, feels like a violation. The vast diorama rooms of the Natural History Museum are dark, inhibited. I wanted to see what a camera sees, the lens on someone I love, the starkness of the diorama suddenly oscillating between what is real and artificial, violent and tender."
-J. Mae Barizo

About J. Mae Barizo
J. Mae Barizo is the author of "The Cumulus Effect" (Four Way Books, 2015). She lives in New York City.

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The Academy of American Poets is a nonprofit, mission-driven organization, whose aim is to make poetry available to a wider audience. Email The Academy at poem-a-day[at]poets.org.


(c) 2016 J. Mae Barizo. Originally published in Poem-a-Day, www.poets.org. Distributed by King Features Syndicate