Touch me, touch the palm of your hand to my body as I pass,
Be not afraid of my body.

As tuas mãos tacteiam-me a tremer...
Meu corpo de âmbar, harmonioso e moço
É como um jasmineiro em alvoroço
Ébrio de sol, de aroma, de prazer!

One hand I extend into myself, the other toward others.

I said nothing for a time, just ran my fingertips along the edge of the human-shaped emptiness that had been left inside me.

أريدُ يديْك لأحملَ قلبي

All my parents gave me was their fumbly hands: I got their hands inside me to this day.

I am in chains. Don't touch my chains.

I was marked after that. Men could smell it on me, that I had lost my body, that they could avail themselves of my body, that I wouldn’t say no because I knew my no did not matter. They smelled it on me and took advantage, every chance they got.

It would be nice to be touched by hands that didn’t want to kill or congratulate me. Sometimes the hands that want to kill me are mine.

I reached out for something to attach myself to — and I found nothing. But in reaching out, in the effort to grasp, to attach myself, left high and dry as I was, I nevertheless found something I had not looked for — myself.

This keepes my hands
From Cupid’s bands.

The Commandant trod on my fingers as he went out. I did not cry out. He did not turn round.

Tenho apenas duas mãos
e o sentimento do mundo,
mas estou cheio de escravos,
minhas lembranças escorrem
e o corpo transige
na confluência do amor.

I am murdering me, where I kneeled at your kiss.
I am pushing knives through the hands
that created two into one.
Our hands do not bleed at this, they lie still in their dishonor.