letter for aurora

in winter
we were teen
as nights were laboratories
tongues exploring
desperate curiosities

12 blocks from your foster mother’s house
we held hands
hiked to the lake
and skated
testing mid-january ice
your mittens furry and pink
clinging with small berries of frozen snow
still they warmed my chapped hands

in winter
we were teen
hardly worth the allusion

as if the sweet sweet sins
of our barking hearts
could murder
could drive us
from these sorry streets of persecution

like gutter icicles
we dripped then crashed
in heavy moonlit darkness
when we were winter
when we were teen

first published in Serving_Suggestion

Slipstream reviews with
michael baskinski

• Number 20. 2000
• Number 21. 2001

     Dan Sicoli (Niagara Falls, N.Y.) is co-founder and co-editor of Slipstream Magazine & Press, now in its 22nd year of publishing. His poetry has appeared in numerous litmags, e-zines, anthologies, and audio poetics cassette tapes including Chiron Review, All Shook Up: Collected Poems About Elvis, Sheila-Na-Gig, Bathtub Gin, Disquieting Muses, Nerve Cowboy, Spoken War, Flower Thief, Zero City, Prose Ax, Erosha, American Contemporary Headcheese, and Alpha Beat Soup. In 1999, he was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

      As a life-long resident of the working class neighborhoods of Niagara Falls, NY, Dan has worked in a variety of vocations including baker, district sales manager, letter carrier, housing coordinator, printer, cheese packer, and rhythm guitar player. He also makes his own sausage.

other online publications:

Disquieting Muses:
• http://www.disquietingmuses.com/May00/sicoli1.html
• http://www.disquietingmuses.com/May00/sicoli2.html
Thunder Sandwich:
• http://www.thundersandwich.com/ts12/sicoli.html
Stirring
Bulkhead
Naked Poetry
Erosha

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