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The Fan
The ruthless fan smothers among its meridians the Ocean's overdone blue, its Indian enchantments. Eurasia unbound undulates in its motion changing the satin shades of the Jura on the surface. In its pale breath the cholera has designs on tropical half-shadows, ships in quarantine. A hanged Chinaman traces on the fan the outline of shimmering Asiatic carrion. O fan of remote aromas like snows trampled on by dead men in other ages! Innocent and limp as a faded cloth, you excite in the air a poison that chokes. Death! No-silence! Who has spoken of death? O fan, your absinthe breathes faintly, incessantly.