I.
Tony Soprano is stressed. He eats vanilla ice cream, big creamy gobs on gold plates. Sprinkles. Chocolate syrup erupting like oil from the soil. Tony mashes it down and down, spoon twisting like a knife. He drinks the paste. Cold milk sliding so slow in the throat. Sugar blurs his eyes. His best friend sleeps on the ocean floor. Tony and three goons sunk him with chains. Tony sees his best friend's brain, split open by his bullet. Fridge seal breaks, a pop. More ice cream, thick block, chipped spoon, straight-swallowed from the carton. Then Tony lines his tongue with cold cuts. Gabagool sliced thin. A memory: his mother, happy with her pot roast, finally a good cut of meat, singing, swaying in the kitchen, then thin & loose-limbed. Tony never saw her happy. His father had cleaved a man's thumb for that beef. Young Tony, shaking in the doorway, had snuck in, witnessed his father split finger-meat from finger-bone. Tony learned then: love means blood. Tonight, he swallows half-chewed chunks of salt-cured flesh until he can't see, can't breathe, gulps air, a fish knifed on the dock.
II.
Tony Soprano is dreaming. He sees: the bare breasts of his therapist. He sees: a car packed with all the men he's ever killed. He sees: a horse, big brown beautiful beast hoofing his cream carpet. He feels: his mother, grey ghost, silent when asked did you ever love me? A fish, frozen, ice-eyed, tells him: your best friend will betray you. Tony wakes, brushing beach sand from his lids. He, like every teenage girl, knows when a dream's brought prophecy.
III.
Tony Soprano is watching TV. He likes: black-and-white WWII flicks or Westerns with gold glorious horses. Really, he'll watch anything. The screen blurs his eyes. He doesn't want to talk to his wife, his son, his daughter, his girlfriend, his other girlfriend. He doesn't want to see his friends (like every teenage girl, he suspects they really hate him). He doesn't want his father, mother, uncle, sisters. He just wants the little cowboys, little soldiers, little lives resolved in ninety clean minutes. This, he thinks, half-asleep, a beast of hair and flesh sunk into a worn recliner, is so much better than real life.
IV.
Tony Soprano is crying. He cries for his horse, a glorious and dappled creature burned by midnight barn fire. He cries for his childhood dog, a gentle thing, all tongue and fur, abandoned by his father (mother's plea request demand). He cries for his ducks, a flock watched since their gosling-hood, floating in his turquoise poolwater. They've left him, his little ducks. They've gone somewhere better.
V.
The night Tony Soprano's mother died, he watches TV. His hand digs deep into a chip bag crinkling empty. He doesn't cry. His eyes, bathed blue by screen-light, don't see. His ribcage, shaking under so much flesh, is stuffed with bloody meat. His heart, buried deep, feels fish-frozen to the touch. Tony drifts to dreamless night.
