A gesture's worth a thousand words,
intimations of the body articulate:
my gas-passing interrogatives,
your inquisitive belches, remember?

At first, such unspoken jokes seemed crude,
though useful. So we refined them,
and from trees at night mock owl-calls homed you in.
Do you remember eyebrows, intelligent as lips?

In time, I developed tics, snarls, an expert shrug,
a professional groan. And I grew to resent
your sighs, your phony, irritated coughing fits,
the critical commentaries of your silences.