Sonnet of Little Faith by William Fargason

The rain pressing the maple leaves looks
like broken green piano keys. This view
out my bedroom window, this TV without
sound. I prayed for snow, not wet sunlight.

In a clearing, I once asked God to hold
my sadness and was told to build
a bigger heart. A bigger ark. A better window
to clean the smudges off each morning.

In the maple tree, a cardinal looks covered
in its own blood. He sees himself in the dirty glass
and tries to attack his shade. For two hours.
He dives, crashes, and repeats, steam rising

through the branches. When I go outside
to save him by scaring him, he’s already gone.

*

William Fargason is the author of Love Song to the Demon-Possessed Pigs of Gadara (University of Iowa Press, April 2020), winner of the Iowa Poetry Award. His poetry has appeared in The Threepenny Review, New England Review, Barrow Street, Prairie Schooner, and elsewhere. He earned an MFA in poetry from the University of Maryland and a PhD in poetry from Florida State University. He lives with himself in Tallahassee, Florida, where he serves as the Poetry Editor at Split Lip.