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.