Dinner is early tonight because of the Mass we’ll hear at dawn.

We must eat and sleep at once if we plan to wake early at dawn.
I crushed some garlic: cloves as pungent as the whispers of our shame.

You poured soy sauce into a bowl. Dark, opaque like the skies at dawn.
I sprinkled some salt and laid some bay leaves; gentle, as in prayer.

As in the mercy that once descended on a manger at dawn.
You then sautéed the pork tenders with pepper, ginger, and the rest.

The oil spits were sharp, but they delivered. Like rosy rays at dawn.
Palm vinegar stings, so it comes in last. Assaulting, but needed.

Its sweetness lingers once the sourness is steamed, revolting at dawn.
Our adobo simmers. There is a child taking shape in the pot.

Like hope conceived in silence but born with chuckles common at dawn.
Not all rooms are ready to take us in, like Joseph and Mary.

This Airbnb is our stable, our home till the Mass at dawn.
Outside, streets smell of burnt bibingka and nutty puto bumbong.

Inside, we pass the rice: fragrant and sticky like dewdrops at dawn.
We hum in the steam of adobo with rice—two people, happy—

feasting on their own secret Noche Buena, ready for dawn.
Love, your name is the Mass I get up for, my prayer without shame.

I sign it with steam and salt, like adobo glittering by dawn.