The spirits in Jean-Michel Basquiat’s head agitated
with all their puissance, they tormented him
until they did his body in
they made their first appearance in abrupt spurts of squiggly
black lines that ate through the whiteness of canvasses
to announce their claim on him
lwas get jealous when nonbelievers with inherited
duties disrespect the order of things and pretend
the price for such denial is high
spirits always find ways to their rapture
so they obsessed him until he gave them form
in iconic signs block letters
crowns
flies
crosses
snakes
numbers
griots
still they took over eating his flesh from within
no one had bothered to tell Jean-Michel
that his spirits needed to be nourished
can’t feed one demon and starve the others
when his met tet finally came out in full without regalia
nude all in black no cane not even the top hat
teeth bared fearful and randy he was already the winner
years after his body passed
under water
on the way back to Ginen
the silence continues
as if no one could tell
Papa Gede danced in Jean-Michel Basquiat’s head
This text was previously published in Gina Athena Ulysse, Because When God Is Too Busy: Haïti, me, & THE WORLD, Wesleyan University Press, Middletown, Connecticut, 2017. © Gina Athena Ulysse, used by permission.