From: The Sopranos

Dr. Melfi

She is still untangling him, taking out snakes

one by one, turning their bodies in the light

pointing out the silver and purple

iridescence of their skins, saying, 'Look Tony,

see how they twist?' 'See how they're all trying

to get somewhere?' He pays her to make

him thoughtful, to ease him through dark water

She has no absolution to offer.

 

He thinks science beautiful, all that learning

captured like so many butterflies in her

fabulous head. He's distracted by the hem

of her skirt, the hinterland between New

Jersey and Paradise. Could he take her today?

Her words are surely blown kisses, foreplay.

 

From: The Sopranos

 

Leotardo

At Ellis Island surnames were lost

with a slip of the pen, histories altered -

a letter lifted and replaced with a smirk.

No longer the noble Leonardo, too full

of itself, too 'up'. You will now be associated

not with genius but with sweat and girl's crotches.

Welcome to America.

 

Hate is a gun, a hard guarantee.

He is alert to sarcasm, mild jokes,

remembers himself as the barefoot boy

at the checkpoint. The trigger is a comma

a comforting pause before blood and bone

finito the sarcasm - Jesus, that tone.

 

 

What do you see in David Tress?

A secret (Wood Edge) II

There is a new order here. You can make out

the wrinkle from where it came.

 

A skull shouldered by worms

is pushed up through mulch to face the world,

 

pathways silvered by frost criss-cross

the forehead, drop away to meet earth

 

as a flame glimmers in the eye socket

like a prayer in the nave of a church.

 

We are invited beneath the surface of the sea

to study the lilac vertebrae of Geckos,

 

their hooky aquamarine bills feeding on light.

Then, like a dream, a suburban street appears

 

with splashy winter pansies, put out to delight

neighbours. With a collision of seasons

 

comes the scent of hawthorn. Soon, the skull 

is replaced by Pluto and her craters of ancient ice.

 

Ravines make the mountains impassable. Though clearly,

there is a lagoon and a woman, steady, on horseback.

 

 

Sunday Afternoon

The help-line is on auto. A woman's voice says,

take a breath, go for a walk, call back later.

 

It will wait. I want to talk about the empty

parking spaces, how I feel rubbed out

 

by the elsewhere of people. Like I'm haunting

pathways, less than the finger of mist hanging

 

over the opposite hill. I'm bothered by

the grey-black tapestry of graveyard there.

 

New oblongs are appearing each week - a

slow fall of dominoes down to the river.

 

A mention too for this snow-less sky,

a blueish net has hung around for days.

 

I'm praying for a collapse, or a slice

in the cloth. Some change in the weather.