Kevin Young

They probably left you alone at the lunch counter.

And there's this kind of knowing connection.

And you're talking about being outside.

But there is this kind of little community that's being created there at the end.

So we are both – because the other – Band of outsiders, really.

Yes.

And the fourth person, though, is the reader who is suddenly there at the lunch counter with these other folks.

And there's a pleasure in that that we don't always talk about.

Yeah.

That knowing nod, you know, where I come from, the Afro nod is a real thing.

And here you are being acknowledged, acknowledging something sotto voce below the other things.

And there's something about that lyric quality.

Because I really believe that the lyric is this moment where you become another I. And the poem kind of resists that for a long time.

It's saying, who are these people?

And then...

It kind of doesn't.

And I think it's that tension, that fifth line that I think is really great.

But you trusted it.

Yeah.

So tell us about the future, not just ours.