Emulsions
“I do not photograph nature. I photograph my visions.” —Man Ray (1890-1976)
We are the women lost to time.
Some of us are lucky to have tombstones,
but we haven’t been properly buried in dreams,
the best cemetery of imagination.
We only want what you gave Kiki
de Montparnasse: image after image
stretching the line of reality
until it turned rubbery and surreal,
so thrillingly real that she stayed alive
long after she’d collapsed at the age of 51.
No one remembers her name, really.
All they know is her face, her body.
Her back played the violin for all of us.
A subtle flashbulb in gauze,
your eye still stares back at us
with our souls pondering
whom to ask, whom to imitate,
whom to call. But first stand there
and articulate us the way
you once spoke with your camera.
We will turn into a dream language
so pure it doesn’t need words.
In time we will outlive your name.
• • •
Raymond Luczak is the author and editor of 24 books, including Flannelwood (Red Hen Press) and Once Upon a Twin (Gallaudet University Press). His work has appeared in Poetry, Bellingham Review, Passages North, and elsewhere. A ten-time Pushcart Prize nominee, he lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota.