The Long Blonde Summer
During the long blonde summer,
the sun made us do things we didnt know we knew how to do,
we wore our hair up and let our hopes hang down our backs, unraveling
like jerseys, under the eyes of the boys in the cars that drove round and round,
inside our minds, Christie Brinkley became a Goddess, her golden mane was the key to
who every girl wanted to be underneath her uniform, bikinis grew on our bodies like moss, soft
and moist, saving fingerprints and cigarette butts and beer flavoured lies, before they were lies, Belinda
Carlisles voice was a vault of sand and her smile turned the dial that opened the sound of every wave,
during the long blonde summer, our parents drifted away, disappearing into the woodwork of the houses
we could barely inhabit, denim jeans peeling off our tans in the eyes of the cars driving the boys around
the lake, that sings the songs, that buried the Barbie Dolls, that bring Kylie Minogue up out of the waves,
playing bikini strings, while the mirrors in the houses of our Mothers are the only voices on land with
anything to say, ‘Lick your lips, let your legs lap up your skirt, let your lipstick do the talking—get your
tan out start walking, during the long blonde summer, the boys that owned the eyes in the cars drove
between our thighs, picking cotton knickers like fresh flowers and we let them have their way, ‘cause the
pool kept beckoning us into the blue, into the blue, into the blue, till it seemed like our way too—late
during the long blonde summer, Rachel Hunter wore her trumpet wrapped round her wrists and
our hopes decayed, short skirts wilted round our ankles and words like pregnancy and abortion
rose up out of the lake, under the clouds in the sky, they were the shapes our mothers
mouths made, when the eyes of the boys in the cars turned away,
and the long blonde summer faded into sunlight.