A Ray of Sunshine

It was my first attempt at DIY hair dying.
My friend had transformed her dull brown
into glossy chestnut and Patricia thought
it perfect to transform her unnatural blond.
So I helped her out.
Tiger Lily, it said on the packet.
Well tigers are a chest-nutty brown,
Or so we thought.
But on a base of blond
the result was unexpected.
Could any creature,
any plant,
be quite so bright,
oranger than orange,
more fiery than fire.
And this was before the days of punk
when the colour would have been lauded
and sought after.
Not then.
Early for the emergency hairdresser,
Patricia called into the butcher’s shop.
In spite of the warm day
she made sure that
the hood of her duffle coat was
pulled firmly forward,
hiding what lay
beneath.
She told me later that she focused
on the large spider on the coat
of the woman in front of her
in the queue
to control her anxiety.
“Did you brush it off for her,”
I asked?
“No,”
“It seemed quite at home there”,
she told me.
Her turn came.
and then horror!
“Here comes my little ray of sunshine,”
he smiled!
Blood and sand!
She thought he could see it.
But he was just being friendly,
like the spider.






First published in Literary Yard, January 2018