Louis Daguerre, Plaster casts, Société française de photographie, 1837
Ahead, approaching, some stranger comes walking, loose-limbed and arms swinging wide— that silhouette, shadow-play brushing a scuffle, a soft shoe, a memory. Familiar, unfamiliar, the stride—they grow taller, elongate, and I catch myself, my self. It’s me, it’s my shadow blocking the light, as liquid and dark as ink from the well. My harbinger twin, spilling stories I can’t yet tell.