LIKE A FAN IN AN ICEBOX
LIKE A FAN IN AN ICEBOX
by Nicole Kuwik
When no one’s home,
I sit on the couch with my boots on
and stare at last night’s cider,
flat and clear,
labeled and lame.
Across town,
someone prints insurance
cards for me, and it’s
all
still.
Like a fan in an icebox.
Almost imponderable, but there it is, simple and concise in the imagist tradition, begging to be made sense of. There she sits all alone yet with her boots on–ready to go but not going, or having figuratively died with her boots on–staring “at last night’s cider,” as non-lively as she, “labeled” by the past, for whatever happened or didn’t. The “insurance cards” may be part of her job, or of one’s standing guard against the risk of mishap–another kind of stay, against the downturns of life, or hope of an upturn. Anyway, we’re left with stasis (“all still”), as she remains inert, in a limbo of, one assumes, regret and dejection for life remaining the same. Does “a fan in an icebox” really stir up relief from the oppressive heat of things just going on without going one’s way?