If I named you mailap,
could you hear it as harana?
or would it keen pahimakas,
an end of words between us?

My songs are not pagasmo,
silakbo sirens, melodies to manipulate.
Poem-fingers do not form you, shape you,
only offer language, habiliu, into your curling palms

You alone will forge yourself
gunita is more malleable than a poem.
This kundiman, pula bughau tula, can bind us both
or simply effervesce,
mere kilig,
so many fluttered wingbeats
fading from the soul.