The blades are coated in a grey, felted fur,
a thick skin of dead cells and city soot.
It rattles like a skeleton in a washing machine,
pushing the scent of hot copper into my eyes.
I remember you in that yellow dress,
the fan blowing your hair into a frantic web.
Now it just shudders in the corner of the room,
whirring a hymn for things that refuse to stop shaking.
A fly landed on the grill and stayed,
frozen in a state of electric shock,
looking like a tiny, charred prayer
offered to a god of lukewarm air.