There’s a smudge on the windowpane.

I squint and old fingerprints bloom against the sky.

The whorls have caught specks of dust, and I lift a hand to touch it.

My mark – yes, mine – feels like a tiny rebuke from my mother.

I’ll wipe it down today. But later.

Right now, something else has caught my eye. I draw my hand back.

Outside, on the other side of the glass that splits my home in two,

I watch a blur of grey, moving and then still – land on the windowsill.

There’s a glass between us, but that’s all there is.

I’d have turned away – there’s so much to do – but a thought stops me.

This is the closest I’ve been to a creature that never lets us get too close.

And now look – just a glass between us.

A finger’s breadth, and on the other side, a gift.

I don’t think it can see me. I don’t think it knows that I’m right here,

Close enough to see its soft shape lined in sunlight gold against the sky.

So close that I can see the gentle quiver of its down,

A bump on its beak – I must remember to find out what that it.

I’m so close that I can almost count all its colours before giving up

and wondering how, minutes before, they were all just grey to me.

I don’t think it knows that I can see it breathe,

First rapidly, still alert, still afraid,

And then slower, as the panic eases.

I see it turn its head, watching this place – my place – and tell myself that

I can’t possible know what it’s feeling. But I’m not convinced.

I think it knows it's welcome here, that it can stay awhile.

That I am just on the other side of this glass.

I see it’s sweet chest rise and fall, and something moves within me,

Like love, like fear, like a prayer.

I’ve never been this close, and I’ve never know, before this,

How they look when they feel safe.