Fallen Angel
Jean-Michel Basquiat, 1981, acrylic and oilstick on canvas
Blue, what could be sky
unknotted—bluer even
than a lake shuffling
into the lungs
and the lungs forgetful
of self, a blackness
that tars every inch of inside.
Therefore, my inside is mysterious.
My wings want to blossom
and ask: am I still wings?
There are animals
that can’t be named surrounding—
a violence. A sex
without erection.
Eventually, I’m without closure—
transparent. Anything can fit:
a heart, a bird, a second penis.
There is a mouth
I call mine
but given to the wind: red
how blood is red
when it frees itself
from the I. Today, the I
is master: a horse with wings
that pearl when the blue sky
lathers and the horse emerges
through the clouds
sifting the faint hairs
like waves before the mammal
collapses against the shore, tired
from being horse, howling—
the legs howling—amputate me.
Yet, I am no horse.
My eyes sink into the skull
behind the jelled sphere
like a snail vanishing
beneath the sand.
Look at all my colors.
What my body takes.
The sun crystallizing me
into a fossil.
