By Cynthia Okoben

You watch your record player lift its arm

And place its needle carefully on the groove.

You sit back as the scratchy

Voice commands you to “Come Together”

And it makes you think of your friends.

You’re told about something

In the way she moves

And you see her standing in a dress,

Spinning around.

A serial killer finds pataphysical

Solutions to his problems with

The sound of “Bang! Bang!”

A man cries to his love,

Begging her to never leave him.

You sit in an octopus’s garden

With a singer your mother doesn’t like

Who would like to be in no other place.

There is a display of the most

Bare form of love:

Want

The side ends and you have to get up.

You sit back down on your bed

And hear the gentle plucking

Of a guitar

Which sounds almost sunny.

A keyboard that sounds

Almost like a harpsichord

Inverts Beethoven

As three harmonies

You know were recorded

At different times

Understand each other

In a way they only could

After spending a life

Together.

McCartney throws shade

At a manager who only wanted

Their money.

He goes back to their beginnings

Asking how they ever got here

And how they can get back.

The Sun King

Beckons you forward

Mean Mr. Mustard

Hides money in his nose

His sister Pam

Takes him to see the Queen

And goes to work

An intruder sneaks

In the bathroom window.

A lullaby

Sounds more like a

Battle cry.

A battle cry

That sounds like a

Lullaby.

An ending leads you to

A couplet.

And in the end, the love you take

Is equal to the love you make.

And as you think you’re at the end,

Her Majesty Comes back again.

The needle lifts off the grooves

And you put the record back in its sleeve

Back in your own world, but not leaving the experience behind.