Since turning twelve
She refused to be photographed.
Let us guess her conviction
that the face she averted
would be sought after one day.
She’d be paid US dollars.

But as yet undiscovered,
she wandered the bomb sites,
rescuing found poems.
Sometimes on street corners
we’d encounter her rigid, blind
as a lamp post in an elegant pose.

Hand to her hair,
a small lump near the temple
was the first indication.
She teased it out, squashed it,
sniffed its oils on her fingers.
Nothing familiar.

At last her long hair
was beaded with swellings,
greenish and fleshy.
She pulled one off, stared
as it swam into meaning
a miniature bud.

She was shaken by nausea
as the first petals opened.
Pale daisy shapes glowing
in fragrant clusters.
Radioactive,
but classified low risk.

In the one shot we have
her lianas of hair
have started to wither.
Behind her, the birthplace
of a Nobel prize winner.
The facade has blown away.