LGBTQ+ Poem: In the Forest of Our Overnights, by Jason Clemmons

This is the place
we stake our skins to the earth. Hopeful,

as we climb into each other, seem bigger
in case monsters.

Tonight, a stand
of evergreens hides the bodies

of heaven and their mythologies. Without sky, the gray moss whispers,
there is only forever; tomorrow

is forfeit – and the next day
and the next.

Then, we’ll braid you in our hair when we feel like being old
men leaning

against the give of the ground, sighing.
Never let this be a memory.

And I keep so still, praying you’ll stay and forget
everything we haven’t done.