Good start without you

“Summer,’’ by Giuseppe Arcimboldo, 1573

“This could be a good day. It starts

without you, as usual; you haven’t seen

dawn for years. By noon it hits half-

boiling & the air breaks down….’’

—From “Whatever You Want,’’ by Kevin Young (born 1970), a New England-educated poet and director of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History and Culture.