As lenses frame a brief exchange

She rests upon an ice prop drifting

Darkly outside camera range.

This child's friend is not the sea.

This child's friend is not the night.

This child's friend is not the ice.

This child's friend is not,

the halogen light.

From barren filmic storyboards

A pair receives the child

And lifts her beyond cinema

Raising her full spectrum into real sun.

Well the hexagon's grin and the dice's spin

Even the fortune teller's loaded

While none of these predict the past

Our bodies are surely coded for the future, babe,

Though our life lines run out fast.

Thread the film through the projector

Loop the audio just right

The stuttering sounds that reach us

Are shivers of such a nervous light.

As silver grains are swirling screens

We pass each other therein

Where babies age through turns of plot

And parents cry again.

Each frame in sequence flickers

Emulsion's burnt away

And before the bulb is cold, child

Let's together realize

The meaning 'till now cauterized

In the shadow puppets

illuminating

this passion play.