Ode to Blue-Haired Ladies

© 1990

Ode to Blue-Haired Ladies

By FlatDaddy

They drive battleships down Mopac

at eighty miles per hour,

Peeping through the window of the wheel,

Hands at ten and two above their heads.

Next to them,

I see blue birds’ nests and noses,

spectacles perched atop their beatific smiles,

gnarled knuckles absently in place.

I wonder what the blue-haired ladies think,

perched on pillows

inside two-ton metal missles

hurtlling down macadam and concrete.

I’ve never seen a single one

look to the side, the rear,

or ever use a mirror except to plant some

artificial roses in her cheeks.

They must drive divinely guided —

For I know they don’t see me;

They don’t see anyone,

They don’t see traffic lights

or stop signs, dogs or joggers.

They see Jesus’ face I think,

and he leads them safely home

and to the store for kitty litter.

I see them humming

in their tinted, cool coccoons;

“The Old Rugged Cross”

comes in telepathic transit through my window,

powered by the fervor of habitual belief.

The blue-haired ladies fill the roads,

a great and growing flock

of souls on cruise control —

holy rollers driven by their Lord,

their Ford, their Pontifiac,

their First Church of Buick,

comfy in their leather pews;

candles burn upon the dash next to plastic

virgins grinding to the bumps.

I think the blue hair must really be

secret, complex antennae

that link little old ladies directly to God.

Otherwise, all the roads and highways

would be littered with their corpses.

I smile at that — and I relax,

safe in my knowledge that the car ahead,

powered by a blue-haired Oldsmobile apostle,

is surely, truely

blessed.

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