Prologue
after a film of Michel Nedjar’s opening in Paris of Poupées de Lumière

entering the gallery
naked in hands and feet
we are ghosts of absent colour

feeling our way
without guile or voice
through affinities of air and light

if we could speak
with more than slow-motion limbs
the message would be our own gentle presence

we dance imagos
willingly held before you
our dances doing more than mirrors

these objects are part of us
the silence of these objects our silences
the muteness of these masks must be our voices

we stand within our creations
their brute beauties one with our own
what shadowy beauties dance in your back streets?