The Morning Reading: "all you want"

Teenage Interplanetary Vixens Run Wild on Bikini Beach
by Allison Joseph

A wash of surf guitar rolls
over cheapo credits, beach music
for three gone chicks to frug to
as they descend from their
styrofoam spaceships in stellar
bikinis, gyrating their hips
as they land on the swinginest
beach in Southern California,
hairsprayed beehives intact
after lengthy space travel.
Will our gals find romance
though adrift from their planet,
the skin they reveal through
chintzy bikinis green, clammy
with make-up? Whoever said
production values could stand
in true love's way? Whoever
said talent makes a movie?
Our trusty aliens sally forth
to find the humans of their dreams,
guys who spend all day on surfboards
rigged up before cardboard backdrops,
hoping the camera records
only from their waists up,
who can't choose between
greasy pompadours and Beatle cuts,
so they end up looking
like dead raccoons have settled in
to die atop their heads.
Our heroines must lure them
with frantic dancing so frenzied
that stretches and splotches
of melted green monster make-up
are visible to any viewer.
If you can make it past
the badly dubbed dialogue,
if you can match each alien
to her name, her guy, then
you might care if this plot's
resolved, might wonder whether
our green space babes will find a way
to fix their faulty ship.
But you don't care.
All you want to see
are poorly painted women
running amok in a sand-filled
studio set, all you want to hear
are wild guitars screeching sex
to the girl who sits beside you
in the theater's dark, her breath
quick as a go-go dancer's,
her hand the hand you clutch,
palm sweaty in yours.

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