Stoppages

(after M. Duchamp)

A line cast over water settles on the water skin.

Salmon engage in piscine trigonometry,

track the crooked trajectory of light.

Pouting courtiers, indifferent to our air-

blighted world, they trend to a chilled cortege,

eyeballing drifting sprigs of glamour – dabbler,

super-sleek, grayling nymph; and

for the single folkloric pike – a shimmer eel.

The fabulous lured by the fantabulous.

Ignoring the trees, the sky, (each

waiting for translation), there is strategy

here, where chance and line contend.

Where was it Klee said he was taking his line?

My tutors – dressed much as they were

thirty or more years ago – repeat it endlessly.