Frank William Finney

What’s to Expect?

Nobody’s talking about those anteaters
we found in a box by the cat food.

The clerk in the creep cap
asked if they really ate ants

and said a whole army
of them ruined his watermelons.

What’s to expect
when you shop in a chainstore

link by link by link
by link?

Assemblies

          I

A bevy of gossips,
feeding their boredom
fingers pinching
chips & diodes,
capacitors
resistors
yawning all morning
till coffee break.
It was just before lunch
When I heard Carl guffaw—
Saw the emperor
fall to the senate floor.

          II

How many hoses
hang from your flesh today?
Needles to feed you.
Needles to bleed you.
How many times
will we meet in this room
before they send you home
to live hose free?

          III.

I grew up in places
close to horses.
A dream I had
to keep my own.
I watched them prance
from behind the pines
while the crowd around me
clapped and cheered
and the dust clouds
stormed the fairgrounds.

Frank William Finney is a poet from Massachusetts who taught literature in Thailand for 25 years. He is the author of the collections Birds in a Boneyard (Bainbridge Island Press, 2025), The Folding of the Wings (Finishing Line Press, 2022), and two collections published in Thailand. His poems have appeared in numerous international journals including Blood + Honey, Dark Winter Literary Magazine, Poetry Habitat, and Porch LitMag. His collections Wormwood Punch (Bridge House Publishing, UK)  and Preludes to Lethe (Kelsay Books) are forthcoming.

Banner Art:
Photo by David Stanley, Flickr , 2020

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