Repeat Until Time

THE HERACLITUS POEM

On those who step into the same rivers, different and different waters keep on flowing…

2.1

Days may be where we live, but mornings are eternity.

They wake us, and every day, waking is absurdity;

All the things you just did yesterday to do over again, eternally.

The clench of tonsil on extra tonsil is an oyster only once,

Once, the blood and itch of broken skin, and afterwards indifference,

The boredom of the weeping aromatic bedsores only once.

But, forever fumbling for the snooze button, the gym is there

Forever, and the teeth silt over yellow to be flossed, and there

Will be, in eternity, coffee to be brewed and that moment in the shower

When you open your mouth and rhotacise the water and just stand there,

Stupid bliss of hot water, tongue-tingling, steaming the shower.

Excerpt from from Three Poems(Faber, 2018), © Hannah Sullivan 2018, used by permission of the author and the publishers, Faber & Faber Ltd and Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Hannah Sullivan

Hannah Sullivan is an accomplished poet and academic. She was born in London and studied Classics at Cambridge; she has a PhD in ...

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