Street Artist

He is the secretive puppeteer of invisible marionettes, and he at once fascinates and repulses me. His hands pirouette about their wrists, controlling unseen dolls dancing apart to their own speculative and hesitant rhythms. Lost in their own world, listening to their own impulses, they have no mutual attraction; they do not flirt, do not seek to caress each other, but merely follow as he walks them along the street. One seems to care childlike about the cracks in the pavement – she jumps to avoid them, while the other, the androgynous one, brushes aside all obstacles crying ‘look at me, I’m free!’

They are oblivious to his hesitance at the kerb, his glance at the danger of the busy crossing. Then they stop. They slip self-consciously to the floor while their strings become tangled, awkward.

He has spotted me.