THE FAN IN THE WINDOW

It is September, and a cool breeze

from somewhere ahead is turning the blades;

night, and the slow flash of the fan

the last light between us and the darkness.

Dust has begun to collect on the blades,

haymaker’s dust from distant fields,

dust riding to town on the night-black wings

of the crows, a thin frost of dust

which clings to the earth as it spins.

The fan has brought us through,

its shiny blades like the screw of a ship

that has pushed its way through summer—

cut flowers awash in its wake,

the stagnant Sargasso Sea of July

far behind us. For the moment, we rest,

we lie in the dark hull of the house,

we rock in the troughs off the shore

of October, the engine cooling,

the fan blades so lazily turning, but burning.