Pourquoi Tale of the Magic Ponytail
by Kush Thompson
what begins as sparkle;
tickled light that globes the making
of blk girl scalp, while she is still
inside. a distant sphere of glittered
city is all an ultrasound can tell.
when she erupts, oil spill
of opalescent yolk, the people crowd
swanned necks around her reveal:
first, the rouged petal of ears
whose color will become her.
then, like peeling up the other face
of a tossed coin, blk girl lifts
into fluorescent affirmation,
by way of a dipped elbow.
presented to the cooing clocks
of her witnesses, whose mouths
make hot pink circles around
predictions, collected wagers, and names
of father who, for a moment, appeared
in the smoked crystal of her design.
it is here, in the audit of a new blk
girl’s scalp, where sparkle rips
a bolted strand. legend say it grow
from where the silver comes from.
delicately, they read constellation
in the birth slick crop, mindful
of its hidden soft. they pass sparkled girl
between wishing hands. only a dusting of
pearled oil to anoint their own dimmed
land. it is believed, this is what makes
the ponytail yearn for collarbone. how blk is born
girl sometimes and those that remember, say it feels
like peppermint disco all the way down. say that
once it grew so long, it made somebody mad
enough to slice it in her sleep.
tickled light that globes the making
of blk girl scalp, while she is still
inside. a distant sphere of glittered
city is all an ultrasound can tell.
when she erupts, oil spill
of opalescent yolk, the people crowd
swanned necks around her reveal:
first, the rouged petal of ears
whose color will become her.
then, like peeling up the other face
of a tossed coin, blk girl lifts
into fluorescent affirmation,
by way of a dipped elbow.
presented to the cooing clocks
of her witnesses, whose mouths
make hot pink circles around
predictions, collected wagers, and names
of father who, for a moment, appeared
in the smoked crystal of her design.
it is here, in the audit of a new blk
girl’s scalp, where sparkle rips
a bolted strand. legend say it grow
from where the silver comes from.
delicately, they read constellation
in the birth slick crop, mindful
of its hidden soft. they pass sparkled girl
between wishing hands. only a dusting of
pearled oil to anoint their own dimmed
land. it is believed, this is what makes
the ponytail yearn for collarbone. how blk is born
girl sometimes and those that remember, say it feels
like peppermint disco all the way down. say that
once it grew so long, it made somebody mad
enough to slice it in her sleep.
Author of A Church Beneath the Bulldozer (2014) and creator of the pink-haired Blk Hottie portraiture series, Kush Thompson is a Chicago-born poet, painter, educator, and fellow of Luminarts, Pink Door, and Cave Canem. She creates archival art; centering often on black girlhood and the mechanics of memory. Her work has appeared in Poetry Magazine, Chicago Reader, The Washington Post, and The BreakBeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop (2015).