Dart-Object

If you’d known what and where I was leaving

from the pieces fallen slack by the mould

Desire might invite key or lock

or tempt you to hold objects in the dark

You can touch the discard

feel it still warm from the form

but her breast won’t forget what once breathed against her

nor her hand release the torch

This is not the tool for entry

but that which when coming, is what’s left

In response to Marcel Duchamp's ‘Objet-dard (Dart-object)’ 1961.

See the artwork that inspired this poem in the flesh, along with more than 100 of Marcel Duchamp’s world-renowned pieces, in ‘The Essential Duchamp’ exhibition at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, 27 April – 11 August 2019.