It was the first gift he ever gave her, <br />buying it for five francs in the galeries <br />in pre-war Paris. It was stifling. <br />A starless drought made the nights stormy. <br /> <br />They stayed in the city for the summer. <br />They met in cafés. She was always early. <br />He was late. That evening he was later. <br />They wrapped the fan. He looked at his watch. <br /> <br />She looked down the Boulevard des Capucines. <br />She ordered more coffee. She stood up. <br />The streets were emptying. The heat was killing. <br />She thought the distance smelled of rain and lightning. <br /> <br />These are wild roses, appliqued on silk by hand, <br />darkly picked, stitched boldly, quickly. <br />The rest is tortoiseshell and has the reticent, <br />clear patience of its element. It is <br /> <br />a worn-out, underwater bullion and it keeps, <br />even now, an inference of its violation. <br />The lace is overcast as if the weather <br />it opened for and offset had entered it. <br /> <br />The past is an empty café terrace. <br />An airless dusk before thunder. A man running. <br />And no way now to know what happened then – <br />none at all – unless, of course, you improvise: <br /> <br />The blackbird on this first sultry morning, <br />in summer, finding buds, worms, fruit, <br />feels the heat. Suddenly she puts out her wing – <br />the whole, full, flirtatious span of it. <br /> <br /> <br />Eavan Boland<br /><br />Eavan Aisling Boland<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-black-lace-fan-my-mother-gave-me/
