In The Belly of Massachusetts

Lungs - giant tanks of iron
skyline gathered in cement tracers
traffic lights hovered in metallic yellow huts
above freeways that swerve and breathe,
like obese concrete circles of eight.
The Liver a swinging hinge
hanging from a waterfall where dead coats of seahorses
danced with dehydrated salmon skins.
Along sidewalks where veterans with no legs
jibe for dollar bits among the shaking junkies
where cuts of beef as large as window frames
simmered on plates of plastic gold.

Matt Duggan’s work has appeared in The Journal, Osiris, The Dawntreader, Prole, Ink, Sweat, and Tears, Algebra of Owls, and The Seventh Quarry. His first full collection Dystopia 38.10 (erbacce-press) won the erbacce prize for poetry in 2015 and in 2016 he won the Into the Void Poetry Prize with his poem “Elegy for Magdalene.”