The ornithologist explained
a billion birds die each year
by flying into windows, not
 
seeing what is there,
an invisible lens designed
to show the world outside
 
from inside, thus tricking
the viewer she is both places
at once. Her job is
 
to retrieve dead birds,
an oriole, indigo bunting,
tanager, a sparrow,
 
catalogue them, to calculate
the number lost over
four full seasons,
 
to determine if the birds
could compensate or  
become discouraged,
 
choose somehow by
instinct to lay fewer eggs,
to give up, if you will, the
 
whole drama of survival.
The birds themselves
perfectly equipped to see,
 
much better than we,
the scientist went on
to tell us, smiled
 
a conspirator's smile,
as if to predict our own
demise, the hidden right

in front of us that no one
explains how to avoid,
a vision of limits revealing
 
the limits of vision,
consequence of finitude,
ingenious invention
 
we clamor for as deadly
as poison dumped
into water. Let me pause
 
while I reconnoiter
the landscape, trees,
houses, hiding place
 
for hawks, skyscrapers
with their panoply
of mirrors in sun
 
below the blue above.
I think I know where
I'm going, which doesn't
 
presuppose I'll come
to the intimate wall
that paralyzes all
 
flight, the scientist
collecting corpses
or the bird born
 
to dream magnetic
curves in color. Not
the concealed which is
 
always there in one way
or another. She retrieves
a wren, still, looks alive,
 
as if he could take off
on the wing, but no. I ask
the woman if she ever
 
takes time to weep.