You remember when your hours
Were born one by one:
Every hour — another hue and fate.

Now you stand before the hours, stooped:
All the poisons mixed together
By a mad apothecary.

In a mortar, in the dark,
He mixes blindly and in haste:
Iron, pearls, herbs, narcotics,

All the There's and all the Here's,
In one potion that overpowers —
He lets you drink your hours.