I want to be held. I want somebody dear to hold me in the wind and the rain when nobody’s near to hold me.
I want to be touched as the tree touches sky and sky touches earth so horizons appear to hold me.
I want to strike out as a flock strikes for home and home is now this, now that, warm hemisphere to hold me.
I want to uncoil a long river of hair, my beloved to sleep, to cross sleep’s frontier to hold me.
I want all that has been denied me. And more. Much more than God in some lonely stratosphere to hold me.
I want hand and eye, sweet roving things, and land for grazing, praising, and the last pioneer to hold me.
I want my ship to come in, hopes to run high before my back’s so bowed even children fear to hold me.
I want to die being held. Hearing my name thrown, thrown like a rope from a very old pier to hold me.
I want to catch the last echoes, reel them in like a curing-song in the creel of my ear to hold me.
I want Rodolfo to sing, flooding the gods, Ah Mimi! as if I were her and he, here, to hold me
MiMi Khalvati