Your Hands

Image: Couple holding hands/penelopesoasis.com

I love your hands
which hold me,
held me,
for so many years
without
binding me,

hands which make
me master
without mastering me,

encircle
without
strangling me,

lift me
the way the drowning
man is lifted,

hands
whose cupped shells
change me

slowly slowly
into the pearl
they wanted
all the time.

~ Gevorg Emin
(translated by Diana Der Hovanessian)