Stoppages

     after Marcel Duchamp

Patrick Brandon

A line cast over water settles on the water skin.

 Salmon engage in piscine（鱼的） trigonometry（三角法）,

 track the crooked（弯曲的） trajectory of light.

 Pouting courtiers, indifferent to our air-

 blighted world, they trend to a chilled cortege（行列）,

 eyeballing drifting sprigs of glamour -- dabbler,

 super-sleek, grayling nymph; and

 for the single folkloric（民俗的） 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.