words of gratitude
Forever Sweet Caroline
By Tyler Lucas Mobley
Don’t be surprised when the lady on the bench says into her phone,
“What do you mean my jet can’t land?” then tells her assistant next
to her to look up the flight authorization number, “no I’m here see
that’s unacceptable,” and she’ll go on bulldozing then garner
sympathy from people with name tags knowing full well no one
can relate to her problems.
Fighting off expectations of a pocket full of money, happening
with such regularity in the occupied role, reality becomes another
check out. Glazed reproductions of the same interaction with
different faces, these trenches are hard to climb.
A bass line everyone knows, hands reach for other hands or
pull up a dress for a dance floor dash because they understand
it won’t play again. Inclined to soften the eyes to the memories
being made before them. Mental barrier to how this band’s cover
doesn’t hold up to the week before, when there’s cake, eat.
Because once you may be asked, “Can you take us back to
our rooms, we forgot our hats?” when they return in bucket hats
with Turkish House Mafia stitched in you’ll find out the groom
is a DJ and witness years of ridicule for his questionable taste come
full circle in a heartfelt gesture. “To the afterparty?”
Discovering the woman to whom the lyric is directed, who for
decades the collective voices have congregated, will need your help
and you’ll come running to her door to find a Kennedy out in the
cold prone to the same faults. Exchanging smiles and a set of keys,
never a more endearing normal than from forever Sweet Caroline.
Walk Where You Want 