Heartland
I am growing grass
inside my ribs;
fluted blades
twisting their leading edge
in meadows of flesh.
There are fields of this.
Where the lark has left,
the wind gusts through –
I have become
its hollow short-cut and you
are corridors distant,
marked up and waiting
to become the gates
they enter through
to meet you.
They graft new branches
onto the heart,
cut paths into scars
that I will follow
to find you.
The nettles rise and fall
yet the pain
is still green by spring
when the flowers begin
to bloom in the heartland.
Julia Stothard lives in Middlesex and works as a data analyst within the retail industry, currently finding inspiration for poetry in an industrial landscape. Her micropoetry can be found @TerzaVerse on twitter.