Heraclitean

In goes the cafeteria worker in her hairnet.

In goes the philosophy teacher

explaining the theory of eternal

return, and Anton Stadler with his clarinet,

still owing money to Mozart. In

goes Mozart. Everyone flopped into the creel

of the happy fisherman, everyone eaten.

Every river is Lethean,

so why should we care

if it’s not the same river? I hate

how everything changes, tree

to failing term paper, chatelaine

to beheaded plotter, drug dealer to narc.

The heart softening faster than cereal

but then hardening to a relic

which turns into another line

of depressed poetry to recite

to the next eager trainee

anxious to be more than lint.

Going up, you’re also going down, so either

way, as your mother said, Be nice.

When she went in, she was very thin.

Earth, air, fire, water, mother.

Fish pulse slowly under the river ice.