Persephone

Zones one to three have become a long-distance relationship.
Underground, Hades and his sardine dead
reach their eleventh hour, hands
rooted to the safety rail above their heads.
Bent for benediction, a carriage-worth of necks are oiled and varnished
with hot saliva breaths.
The Great Lie nine to five, he mutters.
There are forty-minute delays at Hampstead Heath.

Irritation at the deadline, the push-by, the no-headphones, yobbos
and open sneezers.

God I long for it, now.
Or something new to miss.

Nicola Maclean is a poet and screenwriter based in Oxfordshire. After graduating with an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Birmingham she now works in publishing and edits poetry anthologies in her spare time. Her poetry has been previously published in Lucent Dreaming and her main influences include nature, art history and mythology.