L’Opposition et les Cases Conjugées sont Réconciliées

I say I won’t go
and you say you won’t choose
We make games of blocking and correspondence
but cannot sustain the play
I evade, so you triangulate reciprocity
we here both meet and face the inversion
You say to win is not always the end
but I say that if you push
she’ll take you from the kingside
and bleed you cross the board

In response to Marcel Duchamp's ‘L'Opposition et les cases conjuguées sont réconciliées (Opposition and Sister Squares Are Reconciled) 1932.

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.