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“Voluptates Tactionum” by Vladimir Nabokov 🇷🇺🇺🇸 (22 Apr 18992 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.