Jorrell Watkins’s “Still, my brother’s flag flies”

The LARB Quarterly no. 44, “Pressure,” presents a new poem by Jorrell Watkins.

By Jorrell WatkinsApril 19, 2025

• LARB Lit

• Poetry

This poem is a preview of the LARB Quarterly, no. 44: Pressure. Become a member for more fiction, essays, criticism, poetry, and art from this issue—plus the next four issues of the Quarterly in print.

¤

Still, my brother’s flag flies

Holiday season and for once I return home.
My older brother thinner than I remember

in passenger seat that swallows him. We don’t speak
of yesterday or losses that bring us closer—

to bungalow, side of town we avoided twenty years ago.
Before we make out face we spot stepdad bod—our boy

coming down steps. He shoves us inside to appraise
his wine and break rye for those afterschool hours

we couldn’t gather five dollars between us. Spirits raised
we drift to aisles of supermarkets and corner stores.

Pre-security camera install, we thieved sour and sugar—
dashed past onlookers, officers unwise of our concealed prize.

We got stopped for loitering high-end shops, got jumped
for being outside our block, we lost enough to net us luck

to spare us from self-destruct. Faded, my brother whips
out gold fronts, Cartier shades, his solid-colored flag.

We look at the relic and can’t find ourselves
in those free-falling teardrops. Our friend asks,

you still flying that thing? I remember sorting storage
and finding that paisley print in my drawstring bag

of middle school memorabilia. What we did to prey-
proof our boyhood, what we did to say we.

¤

Featured image: Robert Delaunay. Circular Forms (Formes circulaires), 1930. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Founding Collection (49.1184). CC0, guggenheim.org. Accessed April 15, 2025. Image has been cropped.