Joint Winner of The Letter Review Prize for Poetry
The house in its place
could never replace it.
A three-car garage
where the bar used to be.
“I wonder what would happen
if I knocked on the door
and told the cast inside
it was happy hour?
Might they invite me in
for a cameo?
A curtain call cocktail
on the house?”
But, no—he’s walking back
towards the cardboard village
where he’s just another stand-in
in the homeless show.
Frank William Finney is a poet and retired lecturer from Massachusetts who taught literature at Thammasat University in Thailand for twenty-five years. His poems have appeared in numerous journals, magazines, and anthologies including Capsule Stories, Green Mountains Review, and Orbis (UK). He is the author of The Folding of the Wings (Finishing Line Press, 2022) and other collections.
Original Artwork Supplied by Art Director Kita Das