this is where the seeds
are kept, in a coal mine
husk, vacuum-packed, electronically
frozen, as if
unentangled; as if the dead
avifauna (“3 billion
birds, or 29% of 1970
abundance”) care
to know their deletion
has economic consequence.
this is where we count
the data, process “loss
in abundance” —
this is how
the graph gets made.
*
“our ability to monitor
many species
over vast
spatial scales
far exceeds
that of any other
animal group.”
*
this seed is from Syria.
this one’s Lebanese —
heirlooms, saved,
in flagged
dirt plots. here,
imperial eyes
can’t help
but see double
binds and binaries, peace
keeping good
regimes, disentangled, split —
this is how we’ve been made
dependent
on death, made
to know ends
