Ghost fan*

BY DANNY LEE

There I lay, from the highest of peaks, glowering atop

Mountains of blankets, carefully peeling off each droplet

Of slithering sweat from blue and black stripes

Yearning for the sweet release of coolness from above,

Yet when I rose, caked in sweat and

Insomnia, my mother insisted that the ceiling fans

Above must not intrude upon our slumbering heads just because our

Great-great-somebody had once done the same.

Maybe those pummeling blades extinguish the flames

Of our fiercest dragon protectors.

The menacing cycles, they must shred away the spirits of loved, distant ancestors.

Or maybe they threaten to blow away all the little fortunes we’ve written.

[Confucius Say: Fan Off]

Yet as I learned, decades and oceans apart from then and there,

I could recline, cooled by the words of the now and here:

“Fear not!” they cried. “For the enwhitenment is here!

Fan death is merely a figment of sociological, anthropological,

Oriental imagination.” So now I could surely rest,

Secure in the billowy winds of refreshing rationality.

But wait: a bowl is most useful when it is empty, so what happens

When it is full, stuffed to the brim with knowledge and ideas and peace?

What happens when all is known, and all our 'stitions become too real?

Who knows. All I know is that one night, my great-great-grandson will rise,

Interrupted by the searing heat and pain.

* Fan death is a long-standing South Korean belief that running a fan at night in an enclosed space will lead to asphyxiation.