I WAS GATHERED / *image by Amalie Flynn*

Somebody sewed me with a string
On the bias
I was gathered
And about to pop

This has been a pattern all my life

They hemmed me in with notions
Each stitch bringing me
To a false whole

(I longed to slit my wrist)

I jolted with a shock of recognition
To see that I had drifted to the wrong side

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Barbara Tramonte

Barbara Tramonte has had poetry published in literary magazines and anthologies. She has had two books of poetry published, (Oddities, Finishing Line Press) and Letter to a Friend with the Oyster Couch Blues, (Blue Star Press). She has taught as poet-in-the-schools in New York City, as a writing instructor at the Bard College Clemente Course in the Humanities in Holyoke, MA, and as a professor at SUNY Empire State College School for Graduate Studies. For many years, she owned a children’s bookshop in Brooklyn Heights, NY with her husband Bob.