Touch
by Hugh Lewin

When I get out
I'm going to ask someone
to touch me
very gently please
and slowly,
touch me
I want
to learn again
how life feels.

I've not been touched for seven years
for seven years
I've been untouched
out of touch
and I've learnt
to know now
the meaning of
untouchable.

Untouched -- not quite
I can count the things
that have touched me
One: fists
At the beginning
fierce mad fists
beating, beating
till I remember
screaming
Don't touch me
please don't touch me.

Two: paws
The first four years of paws
every day
patting paws, searching
-- arms up, shoes off
legs apart --
prodding paws, systematic
heavy, indifferent
probing away
all privacy.

I don't want fists and paws
I want
to want to be touched again
I want to say
when I get out
Here I am
please touch me.

Hugh Lewin was imprisoned for seven years in Pretoria Central Jail in The 1970s. He said of his prison experiences: "It was only as a prisoner – as a bandit in a South African jail -- that I could begin to realise what life is like for most South Africans. I am white. I had to go inside to know what it's like to be black." In the 1990s he was a member of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.