balm for my brother
by February Spikener
eyes glazed in grief: lay your head on my collarbone: breathe:
the air delivers you to all your niggas named angels: you laying
hands to make them: whole: i tilt your head back to free your neck:
say it’ll stop, one day: bring light to the blunt between your lips: protect
it from wind with my palm: your love be the balm of gilead: when
your own body a wound: hold on: shoulders curling under smoke-
lifted lungs rising from the earth: i got you: let me hold you down
the air delivers you to all your niggas named angels: you laying
hands to make them: whole: i tilt your head back to free your neck:
say it’ll stop, one day: bring light to the blunt between your lips: protect
it from wind with my palm: your love be the balm of gilead: when
your own body a wound: hold on: shoulders curling under smoke-
lifted lungs rising from the earth: i got you: let me hold you down
February Spikener (they/she) is a Black femme poet from Detroit currently residing in Chicago and is an MFA candidate at Randolph College. Her work is forthcoming or has appeared in 'Muzzle Magazine', 'Poet Lore', 'So to Speak: feminist journal of language and art', among others. Ever inspired by their loved ones, their poems reflect how they navigate through the world and what it means to love and be loved. She believes that love is and has always been the answer and that the mastery of love is a form of survival.