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Not From Nottingham

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On one side of the tracks
you sense the change of scenery:
the bones of branches, then the buds,
then the tents of summer green.
Not so on the other side. There the
chainmail bares its dull, metallic ribs
on the chest of its coarse and hoary hills.
You wake up on a train table among
a pride of purring Lionels.
You turn the dial on the transformer
until the conductor jumps onto the sleepers
with a megaphone to warn the world
that he is NOT from Nottingham.
He effs and blinds to the Plasticville walls,
and drops his darts
on tracks between windmill
and interchange
before shuffling off in a huff



Frank William Finney is a poet from Massachusetts. A recipient of The Letter Review Prize for Poetry, his poems have appeared in Brussels Review, Fairfield Scribes, Penn Journal of Arts and Sciences (PJAS), The Paradox Magazine, Route 7 Review, Songs of Eretz Poetry Review, and elsewhere. His chapbook The Folding of the Wings was published in 2022 by Finishing Line Press.