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“Voluptates Tactionum” by Vladimir Nabokov 🇷🇺🇺🇸 (22 Apr 1899 – 2 Jul 1977)
Some inevitable day
On the editorial page
Of your paper it will say,
“Tactio has come of age.”
​
When you turn a knob, your set
Will obligingly exhale
Forms, invisible and yet
Tangible—a world in Braille.
​
Think of all the things that will
Really be within your reach!
Phantom bottle, dummy pill,
Limpid limbs upon a beach.
​
Grouped before a Magnotact,
Clubs and families will clutch
Everywhere the same compact
Paradise (in terms of touch).
​
Palpitating fingertips
Will caress the flossy hair
And investigate the lips
Simulated in midair.
​
See the schoolboy, like a blind
Lover, frantically grope
For the shape of love—and find
Nothing but the shape of soap.