Diorama
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
Copyright © 2016 by J. Mae Barizo. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on May 24, 2016, by the Academy of American Poets.
“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
J. Mae Barizo
