To the Robin Bashing Its Breast Against the Sunroom Window
I too believe—
in ferns,
in lush,
in greenery spilling out of
multiple pots.
In perch,
in watch,
in want,
in launch,
in things you know are there
but can’t be touched.
In nest,
in urge,
in possess,
in territorial
defense.
In eyes,
in perceive,
in conviction,
in how your enemy
might be your own reflection.
In wings and breast,
in thump,
in burnt orange
and sumptuous.
In brood,
in proffer,
in over and over
leaving daubs of yourself
on the glass.
Jennifer Stewart Miller is the author of Thief (2021), winner of the 2020 Grayson Books Poetry Prize, A Fox Appears: A Biography of a Boy in Haiku (2015), and a chapbook, The Strangers Burial Ground (Seven Kitchens Press 2020). Recent work has appeared in Aquifer: The Florida Review Online, RHINO, Sugar House Review, Tar River Poetry, Verse Daily, and elsewhere. She earned an MFA from Bennington College and a JD from Columbia University.