Dan Sicoli

Email: Slipdan@aol.com
Publications: Heathenzine, Pearl, Sheila-Na-Gig, Vinyl Elephant, Zero City, KYEzine, etc.
Other: Co-editor and Co-founder of Slipstream Magazine and Press


SIMPLY DOC

old doc
hard-faced railroad engineer
tie slave
fixer of motor things
hammer underdog pouring a couple
on the table
reminiscing for the best of times

wife cheats
and a fair-haired boy is born
life has no honor
where everyone is a mackerel or
a jellyfish in the
downtown downstream
you remain clean
behind your huge untrimmed shrubs
perhaps your small defiance
in this homogenized block of well-kept row houses

you were found in your lounge chair
under the pear tree you planted
after dolores was born
your head obscenely tilted
toward your envious tomatoes

it was during supper when the news
seeped like barbecue smoke through our screen door
i was the only one to finish eating

i was the only one who ate your tomatoes
when your wife offered them to the neighbors
in that late summer
i was the one she paid to uproot
your shrubs and pear tree
two days after a shovel firmly patted earth down upon you

First appeared in: Brushfire.

- Poetry - A Childhood Compared to the 9-Hour Workday The Downtown Upanishads Kitchen Spirits Larks Die Too Maybe One Verano Kuwait Fall Love Letter Goodbye Circe A Billow on the Clothesline Simply Doc - Prose - An American Suicide Sweet Fanny Adams And They Say He Shall Return Million