(for the late, great Brian Hamlin, who bestowed the nickname,
and for Linda, Jim and others who remember it)

I might be the only woman in the world
who loves her hair just as it (mostly) is,
originally showing up curly and blonde,
grownups marveling at the ringlets
on my small head. And it stayed that
way, refusing to be tamed as I grew,
admiring the long, straight hair of
my teenaged peers.

Though I struggled to straighten it
at times, in college I gave in to the frizz,
allowing a kind woman to apply stinky
chemicals, perming it, turning it into
consistent tight curls that turned
my head into a poof of dandelion,

which prompted the wittiest man
in the newsroom at my second job,
to call me Blizzardhead, quickly
adopted by other colleagues
I came to adore.

With the decades, I watched the puffball
loosen, slink back to its original curl,
darkening, then lightening again to ashy
beige waves, then to ashy gray and what
one generous soul called dove gray.

A new hair hero urged color onto
my pale spirals for a time until another
follicle philosopher sternly advised
against it.

Why? I asked, sitting in her chair
before the mirror, taking in the many
shades of age snowing my blizzardhead.

Because when the goddess gives
you hair like that, the wise woman said,
you leave it alone.