Touched?

I wrote this poem in response to a prompt about touch. It's really about other senses, though - I was remembering the way as a child I would run a stick along railings as I walked down a road, enjoying the vibrations of the iron through the stick as it ran over the uneven surface. 


Even now I have the impulse to run my fingers across radiators as I pass them, as though they're xylophone keys.  


The title of this poem is from an incident in a novel I read the other day ( I can't remember which it was), set in mediaeval times, in which children's heads were knocked against the boundary stones of their village to make them remember that they belonged there. So this is a rather weird posting but here goes.

Beating the Bounds

Railings with rust on are best.
It's the unexpected tingle
bmpbmpbmpckckckbmp
Hedges are no good, they scratch,
bricks break your nails and hurt,
fences give you splinters.

You can hardly feel a marble wall
but in old palaces in foreign places
they have interesting cool carvings
to trail your hand across.

(If you want sound effects 
you have to use a stick)


© Janice Windle