Her entire body is immersed in the gray-green mud
In honor of St. James the Greater:
She holds a lit candle with her mud-slicked hand,
Above the pond.
She feels his voudoun counter part,
Ougou Feray,
The spirit of war and iron,
Possessing her body,
Her wrists, her feet, her hands, her face
And her mind.
The drums echo all around her –
Young Haitian faces pour red wine, rum, meat, red soft drinks
In the pond with her
In honor of the loa.
She writhes and rolls in the mud –
The bystanders reaching for her hand,
To touch the possessed,
To touch the divine
Slicked in gray-green mud
At the Plaine du Nord.