Hands Holding Hearts

The hand I once held

Belonged to someone I knew

I knew better

Than I knew everyone else

It was the hand we dropped

When things got rough

The only one

That would always have picked me up

It was that hand I reached for

Wanting to know its touch again

Wanting to remember

Every line, every pulse in that hand

The hand I got was not the one I wanted

So cold, dead, undeserving

Of a fate 

I do not understand

A hand held mine

Squeezing and assuring everything was fine

I need time

To find who I should have been all along

But where was the life in that hand?

I will grasp the fingers between my own

And wait for the warmth 

and the pulse 

and the colour

To return to every cell.

It will be your hand I hold

When we dance again

Under the stars

Like those nights long and far ago

Our hands raised above our heads