Fan of Nothing – A Poem by Willie Smith

Poetry by Willie Smith

The electric fan into the ceiling sunk whirs.
Behind closed eyes, head bowed,
heels of palms propped on thighs,
seated, I seem to rise into the blades, thinking what
if I not around were? Were but, absent body, minus
mind, memory gone, dream blind, this background
whir? Feel, at the tail of a train of vanishing thought,
the meaning of a finger on a switch, of the change of
the exchange of whirling this into still that. The cat,
taking advantage of my blur, into the lap leaps.
My eyes open onto those of an animal staring up.
The moment of near to nothing passes,
the flecks and rays around the cat’s pupils,
although with finer clarity, exactly as they were.