Body Language by Devon Brenner

At the seminar the speaker

tells us that any message

is only 3% the words

and the rest how you say it,

the pallate of tones painted in the voice

and the pacing of the breath,

the angles of the shoulders,

the semaphore of hands

carry the message, she reports

in even tones,

with good posture and eye contact,

and as I sit here struggling,

no—tussling, no—grappling with line

breaks and white space

and the spider’s web a metaphor weaves

it’s the words I savor

now he’s spoken them

all three of them,

whispered

against my body

late into the night.