busker

To Be Held

From Canadian poet Alden Nowlan's "He Sits Down on the Floor of a School for the Retarded":

It's what we all want, in the end,
to be held, merely to be held,
to be kissed (not necessarily with the lips,
for even touching is a kind of kiss).

Yes, it's what we all want, in the end,
not to be worshipped, not to be admired,
not to be famous, not to be feared,
not even to be loved, but simply to be held.