Fleur Adcock - For Heidi With Blue Hair lyrics

When you dyed your hair blue (or, at least ultramarine for the clipped sides, with a crest of jet-black spikes on top) you were sent home from school because, as the headmistress put it, although dyed hair was not specifically forbidden, yours was, apart from anything else, not done in the school colours. Tears in the kitchen, telephone-calls to school from your freedom-loving father: 'She's not a punk in her behaviour; it's just a style.' (You wiped your eyes, also not in a school colour.) 'She discussed it with me first - we checked the rules.' 'And anyway, Dad, it cost twenty-five dollars. Tell them it won't wash out - not even if I wanted to try. It would have been unfair to mention your mother's d**h, but that shimmered behind the arguments. The school had nothing else against you; the teachers twittered and gave in. Next day your black friend had hers done in grey, white and flaxen yellow - the school colours precisely: an act of solidarity, a witty tease. The battle was already won