[Britt Bustos, Associate Editor: "Whitaker here creates a pastoral ode to queerness – not just through memory but through a futurity, one which asks us to dare a queer future where pinks are hellos and goodbyes at the same time. Their detailed imagery of this queer future provides hope and imagination to any who wish to join in the gathering of friends under the August breeze as they reminisce about the defiance in lacking definition."]

Crepe myrtles throw down their party favors,

each outdoing the other, a chain of pink

hellos, one after the other after the other

after the other, August remains committed

to breeziness; there’s too much trauma 

in the wind this summer, this summer, 

the last summer the swelter will be this cool,

remember, some old queer will say, when

summers dipped below a hundred; the youth,

what shall they recall? I loved my friends, 

I came out, I lived my truth 

as the government turned inside out 

to flesh my freedoms, before we chased the wolf

out, back when we had more fun, before 

the topsoil dusted, before the dollar busted,

when we were young. The future will be 

queerer than I can imagine, a kind of weather

system; the sheer size of a pink future is too much

for one, it takes so much breath to speak 

it, to give it height while standing 

against the wolf beyond sight; it brings sleepy wisdom,

what to do now? Time for song, to gather 

friends, to shut the downstairs windows, hold love

as tight as you care; does anything change? 

When it comes down to it, I reach out my hand.