Time, or more precisely temporality, is a classic structuring element of novels and prose literature as a whole. Sequence of events, consequences, developments and narrative programs in general, even when on deeper levels and without a superficial temporal linearity, act as classic organizers of the prosaic register. In turn, the poetic traditionally uses circular discursive constructions such as rhymes, refrains, alliteration, assonance and other repetitions. What happens when literary prose abandons a temporalizing structure? In order to reflect on an answer to this question, we set out to investigate one of the main books by Clarice Lispector, a great representative of Brazilian modernism in prose. In Água Viva (Lispector, 1973), the author relinquishes time marks in favor of a flow of sensations and impressions that are connected without a clear perception of totality and directivity, which hinders the discursive progression of the reading (Moreira; Lopes, 2020; Façanha, 2021). Based on Greimasian semiotics and the work of Lemos (2015; 2019), our analysis revealed that the work has a centripetal force built up by discursive repetitions, which imposes a regime of circularity on the linear progression expected of a novel. We conclude, then, that the abandonment of temporal progression and the management of the flow of progression governed by strategies of repetition are configured as strategies for the intrusion of the poetic, which in these cases is responsible for creating the effect of "poetic prose" in one of Lispector's most experimental texts.