Marcel Duchamp with Pocket Chess Set

I’ll play the light

and pocket each memory in mourning black

There’s something to be won from a rightful step:

             a consent to match

             and advance upon each other

I’m not asking to be wanted

just to give what I had to give

This will fall back when the move is right

and surrender

when the choice is lost

In response to Ethel Pries' portrait, 'Marcel Duchamp with Pocket Chess Set, New York' 1946.

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.