unsaid

Aphasiacs learn a dog-like sense of tone
'though they can't parse a sentence or a word
non-verbal cues (lost on the telephone)
inform them what's sincere and what's absurd
what toddlers had before they learned to speak
can be recruited when language is gone
thus nurses speaking Arabic or Greek
can still convey to them what's going on
deductively, one can't know others' minds
are more than phantoms that our own project
but judging who's an ogre and who's kind
one needn't share a common dialect
when aural world and optic correlate
we take on faith that we communicate