Touch Has A Memory

by Clive James and Pete Atkin

Touch has a memory
Better than the other senses
Hearing and sight fight free
Touching has no defences
Textures come back to you real as can be
Touch has a memory

Fine eyes are wide at night
Eyelashes show that nicely
Seeing forgets the sight
Touch recollects precisely
Eyelids are modest yet blink at a kiss
Touching takes note of this

When in a later day
Little of the vision lingers
Memory slips away
Every way but through the fingers
Textures come back to you real as can be
Making you feel time doesn't heal
And touch has a memory

Note (from Collected Poems)

The title line is from Keats, in a mysterious, distraught and song-like love poem to an unnamed addressee. ‘Touch has a memory. Oh say, love, say/ What can I do to kill it and be free/ In my old liberty?’ In that mood he was practically Leonard Cohen: all he needed was a trilby hat.