A bird alights on her finger
As if by magic; the guests coo their pleasure,
Her finger a marble twig, party to
The robin’s red ensign.
The trick has been a success
And for it gracing her finger
She looks the more beautiful,
The more diaphanous,
Not flesh, a vision.  

But consider: birds have very small brains.
They are like a cashew nut, the meat of an acorn;
To teach them to do the trick, to do anything,
Is trying in the extreme, is an act committed
To the absurdity of things.
It says: yes, why not? Why not
A spectacle with a bird?

Why not use up this bird’s short life
In taming it, in tempting it down from the tree
Day after day to make a habit, and draw it closer
To the waiting girl, the seed closer to her hand,
Then in it, then laid on her finger, until the bird hops on
For the first time? Then to stop it startling
When she moves? And the greatest trick of all:
To remove the seed, but for the robin still to come,
To fly over and wait, obedient on the finger,
Just because that is what it has always done,
Though there is nothing there for it,
Why not? 

But, if it is all as absurd as I say,
Why then does the girl look so beautiful,
And the bird so proud?