I remember one day that my grandmother braided my hair
In an old world style,
A Dutch braid, as she fashioned it.
She used a million bobby pins,
Because my hair was what she called 'flyaway hair.'
I felt her hands scrabble across my scalp
Picking up strands of my hair like a peanut combine
And laying them back down in harvested rows
Poof! I was transformed into a goddess,
A junior one, at least, for I certainly didn't know how to make this braid
And couldn't have done it by myself.

Now please don't get the picture that this was an every day occurrence.
It was not.
This was something very rare and very special,
And I wished the braid would last forever,
But in just one hour,
My flyaway hair proved
Too much for the old world braid,
And just how useless bobby pins are
In the hair of a post-postmodern six-year-old at play.

And I think my grandma saw that too,
And maybe that's why she never bothered
To braid my hair again,
But only brushed it for me now and then
And let me and it fly.

-jenn