"Touching your goodness"
The phrase that opens the poem is not just one of the few existing outside the extend simile making up the bulk of the poem, it is perhaps the most frustrating thing about the poem. What does it mean to “touch goodness.” Keep in mind that the poem is all about language and communication and that words and meaning are vital to interpretation, but words and meaning are synonymous. The poet uses the word “hand” twice, but with each use the word takes on a different meaning. In one case, hand refers to a body part and in the other it refers to writing. For a blind person, touch is literally related to literacy; it is the means by which they read. For nearly everyone, being “touched” by another is less literally related to literacy; it means reading the emotional tenor of another to the level of generating empathy. Thus, “touching your goodness” is here open to symbolic interpretation as being related to emotional literacy; the ability touch someone’s emotion or, alternatively, to be touched by another’s sense of decency.
The "Illiterate"
The illiterate man holding the letter he cannot read is the controlling metaphor of the poem. The poet uses him to symbolize the much larger concept of lacking literacy. Because the man cannot read the contents of the letter, those contents can simultaneously mean an infinite number of things capable capable of stimulating the whole range of emotions across the spectrum. For the speaker, however, the illiterate man carries a specific stated symbolic meaning: his inability to read the letter is specifically compared to what the speaker experiences when touching the goodness of the object of his address. He feels illiterate or, in other words, he lacks the ability to read the other person affirmatively. The other person’s goodness can thus create simultaneously a hot of explanations that produce a wide range of emotions. Because lacks the literacy skills to assertively conclude meaning when trying to read that goodness, the meaning remains open to infinite possibilities.
Identical Rhyme
The word “hand” is not just used twice for different meanings, it is used for end rhyme purposes. The poem does the same thing with the words “means.” The poem uses repetition of the words “beloved” and “words” and “him” to conclude lines as well. Generally speaking, rhyming a word with the same word is not considered good writing. It might even be termed poetic illiteracy. Here the intentional use of the same word is all part of the theme proving that literacy in the form of recognizing word is not necessarily the same as literacy in the sense of recognizing meaning. While “hand” and “means” are used twice with two different meanings, “him” is male pronoun reference both times while “word” and “words” retain the same meaning but differ through use of singular in one case and plural in the other. These repetitions have the cumulative effect of endowing the language with great symbolism regarding the meaning of being illiterate. Words themselves are meaningless to both the literate and the illiterate if nuances of connotation and context are not also recognized.
The Dark Girl
The reference to “the dark girl” finally writing to express her love as one of the possibilities contained with the letter is a symbolic allusion to the poem’s sonnet form and the mysterious figure to whom Shakespeare addressed many of his sonnets. The indication that the speaker is addressing a homosexual love is based primarily on this symbolic link to the same being hypothesized about Shakespeare. That indication is, in turn, based on biographical information about the poet himself and the suggestion that he felt the need to encode the homosexual subtext due to the more repressive social milieu in which it was composed and published.
The Unopened Letter
The unopened letter is a symbolic for the positive interpretation of what it means to be illiterate. With a lack of a literacy, meaning remains open to infinite potential. It is literacy that reduces that potential down to just one singular meaning. The suggestion here is that there is worth in lacking certain types of literacy. To lack literacy leaves one left in ignorance, to be sure, but to be ignorance can just as easily mean happily avoiding bad news as it can mean missing out on good news.
