They told me

as a toddler
with fat on each side

of my tongue, 
swaddled between

ate Cathy and tita

Adoracion,

that I should be bitten
between a thumb

and index 
because I was

gigil na gigil talaga
***
Gigil, the root word

for frustration
caused by

cuteness
Gigil, they said

trembling
teeth grit

chewing back 
brown lower lips

barely containing the blood
***
They told me I was

the opposite 
of a rice queen

which is desire with no name 
a silence

in whiteness 
like snow, they told me

I’d water fields 
even in monsoons,

a fork for a tongue and eyes of Bohol
would make a baby face

out of a high chair
***
They told me to take

as many helpings
as I wanted,

rice, soy sauce and kraft singles
melted

on round cheeks
a cuchara,

an arrowroot 
behind milk teeth I wobbled

ilocano, tagalog 
until they told me to translate

the semitone
on a sherried lip

the moaning, they said
for what I owed an older mouth

in a harness 
***
They told me this but we are now

walking
from the manly to

spit
real men and flannel

flowers, on a sunday 
softer than two ships

passing in daylight, 
the gap between them

the distance of shoulders  
***
I told you

to lick my 
tomorrow,

because the safest memory 
is the whet of a tongue

drawn in salt,
I say it to the small of your back

to the clef of your wanting,
where sin still leaves dimples

deciduous, and your throat will know 
the lord loves us,

it will know
that he is so very,

very good