The ponytail, a true tale

The picture prompt at The Mag is called "The Ponytail, by Last Exit" — and one glance at it made me think of my childhood in the 1950s, when the ponytail was a fashion statement for girls. (Boys didn't start wearing them until decades later.)

Ponytail, by Last Exit

ponytails were popular

when I was very young

when my mother made me wear my hair in braids

and not just any braids

for they were very tight

and hurt me where the hair pulled from my head

so my friend across the street

who was never quite discreet

took out the braids and made a ponytail

“oh no!” I cried

“please don’t” said I

“for my mother will be very mad at me!”

I couldn’t go home,

so I didn’t go home

until hunger made my tummy very sore—

when I crept in

with hair of sin,

my mother took one thoughtful look at me

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

“I see,” said she,

“it’s plain to me,

“Gloria’s been at your hair again!”

Posted for

The Mag 170

and also for

Open Link Monday

at the Imaginary Garden with Real Toads

and dedicated to my lifelong friend Gloria, who works very hard at making everyone around her happy, but who has probably never had a poem dedicated to her. She often decided to unbraid my hair and put it up into a ponytail, and I was pretty much helpless because, in those days, she was bigger than I was.