Sink Stopper

To stop: tinker, replace

Drain and fill

Pop the stopper

From the stove

Drip drop, but sink not

There’s a replacer

Forge the tinker, the failure, the bathtub maker

Sink the top

Drain the lot

And pocket the not

In response to Marcel Duchamp's '‘Bouche-évier (Sink Stopper)’ 1967.

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.