Lee Duggan

From IN THOSE SHOES

plain trees familiar
over the border
Umbria rivers T
Garbatella via metro link
roaming connection
strong military duty
3 Caravaggios & a Bellini
in one day
fish come in
a small waterproof wrist watch
loose footing
spaces between
flesh & though
pulling me over

to here & sometimes now

thrown
to stony water
tufa dive blocks
graniteback
nant
bloodruns
oxygen bright down one leg

rocks in the road
a slow movement of algae
to parting
long fallen oak
black bank walked-
walls ox
bloodred
burn umber terracotta
top
bloodrange drape
to cast me on
catching me
catching
when you hold on it collapses in damp splinters

refracted
churches
outside icons
& echos
re-built on
re-builds
3 euros for Abruzzo wine

abandon the map
market place charm
reading right to left
4 books for 4 apostles

light direct the eye
faces feet & open hands
lemon scented
oregano
full of stories
caught in a frock full
fragole
evaporating
as the sun moves
sit low
& prepare to shiver

succulents & rosemary share pots
cold plums cool
wine
cicada
beyond the 8th floor
& more

end the sky
ride
featureless & still

at last I feature
space for chicory buffing
no instrumentals

day 2
menstrum & colostrum
the strongest Madonna
walked St Clemente
washing on every available
layers of court yard
small side chapels
burn my hand
meet up underground
& ride homewards

vermillion stripped
saintly beggar
dedicated to a busy roof
Saturday bells
where is the whale
peaches
& allora

sit by Byron
rain turns to figs
tiny tiled illumination
the sky this ghetto
& a misquote

second hand views
by rote

turning to
familiar touch

Lee Duggan’s first collection, Reference Points, published by Aquifer in 2017, was followed by a sonnet sequence Green (Oystercatcher 2019). Her work appeared in The Edge of Necessary (Aquifer 2018), an anthology of contemporary Welsh innovative poetry. She has forthcoming collections with Knives, Forks and Spoons and Contraband.