COMPASSION

By Jan Marin Tramantano

I am a shiny purple ribbon
wound loosely around your legs,
I let you know I’m there,
dressed in silk, my touch so light
you mistake me for an excuse.

I live within you competing
with blinding yellow of fear
blood red of desire
thorny brown of loss.

I am a slip of purple
with little traction
easily lost to hard ambition
camouflaged by noise.

You hungrily search for me
when rife with loneliness.
I guide you to look up
at a sliver of moon, the flicker
of Capricorn in the night sky,
ascend my invisible bridge.

When you become still,
alone with your essence,
you will shift,
feel me graze you
become mine.

Jan Marin Tramontano is the author of two poetry chapbooks, Floating Islands and Woman Sitting in a Cafe and Other Poems of Paris. A third, Paternal Nocturne, (Finishing Line Press) will be released in late January. She also wrote a memoir about her father, I Am a Fortunate Man. Her debut novel, Standing on the Corner of Lost and Found, was published in September 2011. Her poetry, stories, book reviews, and interviews appear in numerous literary journals, magazines and newspapers. She belongs to the International Women's Writers Guild, served on the board and as program chair of the Hudson Valley Writers Guild and is a member of Poets House and the American Academy of Poets.