Proving Grounds, The

Tonic at the Odeon

73 Tonic AT The odeon Cleveland, Ohio, downtown club Bright paint glowing up low light Three guys strumming, highlighted Upstage, acoustic guitars And electric bass, sound familiar As a flannel shirt, some reassurance The parts of my life, the way Each decade splintered off To the next like sparks flying Bright orange, then gone, Were not missing at all but lit up In those slow-churning chords, Spinning off, the singer’s voice Pleading, liquid, filling the room And the bodies start swaying, Six hundred of us, everyone singing along And my ex behind me, both of us standing The way we’ve always stood, Vodka and cranberry tightly in hand Except I don’t lean back into him Like I want to 74 I stand straight, just dipping my hip With the rhythm a little bit, Nodding my head, but I can feel him Behind me like California, San Diego and Irvine, sometimes L.A., OrTucson, Phoenix,Austin, All the places we’ve listened just like this, The years, andTonic starts playing NameThatTune with classics like Zeppelin, Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, And every last one of us With the exception of my ex Names that tune on the very first chord And sings it through And he just starts laughing Because he’s four years younger And loves REM, the Cure, and the Smiths, One of our biggest disagreements And we’ve always been standing here just like this, The afternoons in all his different bedrooms Just like this, his hands more familiar Almost than my own and his life With that girl who looks something like me Hasn’t happened, and my life with my husband Who looks nothing like him Hasn’t happened, there’s only Bodies and voices, guitar chords and stage, California in our twenties,Arizona our teens, Sunlight, bodies, mouths guitars hands, And I look at him, my mouth twisted Up at one corner, almost smiling 75 And he knows I am thinking How could we be here in Cleveland, Almost touching, but not, How could the band’s encore Be a song from Fleetwood Mac’s “Rumors,” My favorite album ever But the song isn’t “The Chain,” or even “Dreams,” Almost smiling because instead the guitars Start on “GoYour Own Way” And I’m singing it hard but disappointed And when we head for the door It will be Cleveland, notTucson, San Diego, L.A.— It will be March, we will be cold And we will be who we are, Much older. ...