On the beach

The Nude Beach Photographer

He talked with his hands.  He pursed his lips and asked questions
By tilting his head and posing to me
His shimmering, hoping eyes.

He yammered
and flapped to the next page of his book of photos,
and the next, and the next,
and told us what was on his mind when he took them.  
On a big box camera with a tripod in the sand
He leaned like a loopy clown who might drop at any minute.
We oohed at every picture.
His eyes moved to each of us
Like pointed lenses
Resting quickly.
His thoughts flew from his mouth
and we weighed them
and he watched us,
and he flipped to the next picture,
and the next.
In each there was something glowing:

Candlelight curving over black shoulders;
The echo of a young silver moon
on the sharp edge of a deck
In the darkening sea;
The teeth of an old woman
Smiling to a row of field stones, her
Straw hair in a bun;
A woman's backside upside down in a handstand
On this very beach where we now stood, a strange man
Seated beside her, reading a book.

"Look, it's 'The Story of O'!" he said;
he tilted at me for a long-last second,
That one moment when I might have been part of a beautiful picture,
and not just standing out on this beach looking in.