So I think the poem does an interesting shift with
"Why do their eyes still follow us if not to glimpse
the life that's been denied them by our glass?"
but I am not sure you need the follow up with the next couplet, or whether that couplet could possibly match what you've already written. The perceptual trick is "perspective reversal" in that the glass does not keep you in, but keeps them out.
Some ideas off the top of my head:
[1] Perhaps this shift can come later, and and closer to the close, so you can build towards it, and then close the poem from it. For example, "we watch their watching" would set up the "the life denied them by our glass".
[2] I think you give the game away too early with "We think they must be some exhibit:". Keep the rabbit in the hat as long as possible, but just before it dies.
[3] I reckon "black work" is too open a phrase for the close, and suits the interior of the poem better.
Yeah!
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