Composizione (1914) Poem by Laurence James Duggan

Soffici’s painting (my colour photocopy
from a 1946 book):
the glass and cup
flattened – glass with a thick base,
cup with an edge turned into a spout
– heraldic almost, either side
above a slice of watermelon, red
white, green: an Italian flag
though with black spots, seeds,
on the red. Near its base
the shape of a fig? (left)
and (right) the letters SOF
stencilled, emerging from a shadow
(of the watermelon slice): the slice itself
functioning perhaps as an A
(for Ardengo), its upward point
continued by an indeterminate
grey shape