Necklaces of jasmine-flowered words
cling to the throats of whimsical tourists
before blending with the bustle of Bangkok
like clownfish among coral in a tumultuous sea.
Some are as red as chilies whose ancestors ripened
on Brazilian hills
and dried below the decks of Portuguese ships.
Others are as white as coconut milk or Cape Gardenia flowers.
And still others—blue as the Chiang-Mai sky in the middle of May.
Sometimes they are swallowed with pennywort juice
by the baskets of lotus roots, tamarind plums, and tassel flowers
at the Pak Khlong Market;
muttered playfully at the caged puppies at Chatuchak Park;
grumbled across King Rama’s Memorial Bridge;
shouted from the decks of taxi boats
up and down the Chao Phraya River;
whispered in every bar along the Patpong Road;
bounced above the tuk-tuk seats as they glide around the Democracy Monument;
strung together to form cognac-flavored wishes;
drowned and resurrected by the same bottle of Mekong.
And in the early hours
they come to roost like the leaden darkness
upon the roofs of the spirit houses.
Frank William Finney is a poet from Massachusetts who taught literature in Thailand for 25 years.. His work can be found in BarBar, Hare’s Paw Literary Journal, Hearth and Coffin Literary Journal, 7th-Circle Pyrite, and Tales of the Strange (anthology) with work forthcoming in Blue Unicorn. He is a Letter Review Prize for Poetry winner, and the author of The Folding of the Wings (FLP Books, 2022) and other collections.