after The Sopranos, S04E02 No-Show

CW: Depictions of violence

I. 
Meadow’s therapist agrees, yes, Europe 
would be good for her. She scribbles it on a script
pad. In this version, Jackie Jr. is still her dead boyfriend. Bad 
memories, the therapist says, stay where they happened—waiting
on loop for a time-traveler to come undo it all. 
In this version, Tony and Carmella cannot argue. On the plane
Meadow feels lighter. Jackie Jr. is less and less dead 
the further she gets from New Jersey. 

II.
Meadow is in Paris, is in a club dancing,
her French Columbia-equivalent homework waiting
on her. She’s behind. Again. But Jackie Jr. is alive
in New Jersey. Why wouldn’t he be? She closes her eyes 
for a beat and when they open, everyone is Jackie. Everyone
is leather-jacket, hair gelled and spiked only in the front.
The lights are all red and the disco ball rolls 
perfect red spots all over the Jackies. They’re all dancing 
to the sound of a single gunshot on a loop. 
When the lights come up they all
fall to the ground. 

III. 
Meadow can’t breathe but chalks it up to the alcohol
and dancing. Hallucinations, trick of the mind. 
Outside, the cool air pin-pricks her skin and the episode
is nearly forgotten. On the walk home, she passes
by the Eiffel Tower and remembers she has yet to climb
it, see it up close. No one is there to stop her, so she climbs
and climbs and drinks up all the dirty air as she goes.
When she gets to the top, she balances on one foot, looks down
at all she has accomplished. But all she sees are bodies
stacked on bloody bodies.

IV.
Meadow is tip-toed on a tower made of everyone 
Tony Soprano has ever killed. Lincoln-logged together 
by their wounds: nose plugged into headshot, 
broken ankles cradle brick-beaten necks, backwards 
arms interlock like a game of Red Rover—all the hands 
reach upward.  

V.
Meadow falls out of a starless sky
and keeps falling until 
she reaches the ocean and floats to its floor. More
bodies: they are in perfect rows, planted
like green beans. Bloated in thick plastic and tied
with snow-chain bows. The tarps are cirrus-cloudy,
she sees their swollen faces and recognizes
the uncles that have all but moved away.

VI.
Meadow is feeling the weight of the water,
too heavy to swim upward. She digs. Claws
through the sand and shells and seagrass until:
a break of sunlight, illuminating the ocean 
from the bottom up. Head-first she goes.
into the light, into the street-chatter, into air
that isn't rotten. She knows this is Naples,
but she doesn’t know how. 

VII.
Meadow calls home. Spits everything out at Carmella: 
everyone was Jackie Jr and the bodies, the bodies 
and the blood and the water and the chains and the bodies and Italy
and the bodies. Meadow wants to come home. Carmella says
she will call Tony and he will call Dr. Melfi, 
who will give another therapist recommendation. 

VIII.
Meadow’s therapist agrees, yes, going home 
would be good for her. She scribbles it on a script pad
and tells her to hand it to the pilot as her ticket. He is waiting
for her on the shore like a taxi driver. On the plane
she is alone, fluttering between awake and asleep,
wondering who will pick her up from the airport, 
hoping for Jackie Jr. 

Adrian Sanders is a poet and editor living in Elizabethtown, KY. Her work has appeared in Rejection Letters, Juke Joint, Indiana Review Online, and others.