WHAT could be more essential to summer than traveling to an exotic place (though it be another planet!) or playing in a rock band?

That, anyway, is where we take you with “Two Poems by Ross Taylor.” Consider it a vacation inside your own mind. (No VR headset required.)

Speaking of the mind’s capabilities, the second poem, “How to Get Through a Song,” is noteworthy because it presents simultaneous experiences. What does that mean? Read it and find out!

I couldn’t hear the band any more. I couldn’t hear anything
and the pretty girl Frank and I were looking at was blind.
They started freaking about not being able to hear anything either,
“The birds have all gone quiet!”