Two Heads
On the bus, their backs to me,
two women, in conversation.
One wears a pink head-cloth
of glazed cotton, sculpted
into stiff satiny petals.
A protea, a sunflower, a cousin to
dahlias and chrysanthemums.
Her friend wears her hair
in a smooth black helmet,
so fragrant that sitting here
I picture the fat bud
of her head slowly opening
in the hothouse of the bus
and blazing into bloom.
Imogen Forster is a birdwatcher and a translator, mainly of art history, from French, Italian, Spanish and Catalan. She publishes poems on-line and in print magazines including Hark, Lunar Poetry and Lighthouse, and tweets haiku and other shorts as @ForsterImogen.