From space – a burning heart

bright capsule of motorway
pierced by filaments of light
stretching to outposts,

grey arteries radiating from a tangled core
veins of sluggish water,
a thrombus of plastic and leaves.

It hypertrophies
in angular folds of concrete
layered over bones,

domes of churches corseted
between sheets of glass and steel,
the curve of its ankle,

underground a writhing
wormery of tunnels and cables.

Its pitted integument keloid scarred,
thrown into strata;

the dust of ash and embers,
the crust of excrement from cattle driven over cobbles,
the trunks of London Planes stained black with shrapnel.

And all those hearts,
beating through tower blocks and offices
pulses thrumming through streets, under pavements.

Disturbance is standing still,
resisting the motion.

Ilse Pedler