Fans

for Nolan Morning, I tell my betta, Beau, how beautiful he is. He fans out sideways turquoise, crimson and green for my inspection. It's introspection time for she who wears a writer's hat, anytime is writing time, and she sees again through the window where she works the stately oak, talking to itself, thanks to the leafy wind from the lake that clears its throat. It's shaped symmetrically like the Chinese fan I yearned for, spread out in Bo Song's parents' laundry window down- town on Third Street, the one the father I was named for bought me when I was nine before the blood clot in his leg found home- base in his heart, and I was suddenly twelve, bereft of sire, almost a woman, alone to fan her way through her thirteenth summer.