Communication? Poem by Bethani Ann DeLong

Communication
We talked across an invisible curtain
Both of us using a second language
Trying to express our
Maternal thoughts.

In a locked room
Fearful I'd never return to talk again,
To continue our sad comedy of misunderstanding
You couldn't bear to let me go.

In the end,
Our only fluent tongue was body language.
Yours more violent, due to passion
Reducing me to a series of flinches and dodges.

Exhausted
Mental, spiritual, emotional, internal wounds
Bruises won't show their colors for long if at all.
I understood your meaning across the verbal barrier.