Hey, meet the swinger
A '60s kind of girl
Walks like a panther
Smiles like a princess
On the blazing white beach
Her body etched in silver nitrate
Her camera dangling like heavy jewels
shoved in the face of the viewers
This new thing was cool
BAM. And with her mouth open,
Beach girl, girl of the raging sands, the girl we can't reach
Snaps the shot, the snapshot
with her Love Story hair wisping in ocean breeze
her counterculture eyebrows melting hearts
she snaps to show us how easy
how almost alive
though you know she's snapping at nothing at all
And now comes the Archieparty
The beach blanket bingo we've all been waiting for
those wholesome young people
splashing each other and doing the boogaloo
but we know what's under those blinding smiles that delirious laughter
There's a reason they call it The Swinger
In nervous clicks
the straight-browed girl is squeezing the button again and again
though taking a picture of air
Her day has not come
but it will
then as swiftly depart
she's a '60s girl bare feet and long hair and straight black brow
not beautiful but has the Look
her moment on the beach
Again and again she tosses her tresses
in that stoned and blurry way
and for the first time we see
her dangling earrings gypsylike
her careless carelessness
her throwaway look so carefully composed
and Chaplinlike, our lovers proceed into the ocean
a march a brisk step and when seen over and over, how it becomes so clear
they have nothing to do with each other
and how would they ever know it would fade so quickly
yet last forever
broken into bits on a woman's computer
played with like a toy
a sliver of memory seen over and over
"hey, I want to get one of those"
even though "nineteen dollars
and ninety-five" was way beyond my reach
what I wanted was those eyebrows
those thighs
the windswept hair, the earrings, the boy friend
and all that comes between ourselves and time.
