Surgery
pierce the surgeon in his living clock
and find fine times better than Wednesday next
to be dispatched with a little wipe
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 25 May 1667.
Dave Bonta
SourceLicence:CC BY-SA 4.0
pierce the surgeon in his living clock
and find fine times better than Wednesday next
to be dispatched with a little wipe
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 25 May 1667.
Surgery here is turned on its head. Instead of the surgeon piercing a patient, the speaker imagines piercing the surgeon, right into his "living clock." The phrase suggests that even the person who holds life in his hands is a ticking, mortal thing, with a body that keeps time like any other.
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