This is the second and the last poem I read in today's reading. I hope the children in the crowd covered their ears with their hands. Thanks to my friend Karen Davila of ABS-CBN fpr this photo, which she put in her Twitter account. Other twitter messages called my poems "naughty" and "sexy. az in." Hmmmm. I just woke up the afternoon crowd because I didn't want them to think that poems always need to be serious. Or boring. ;-) Fires I don't know what it is about your fingers that caress my skin with a touch like breath warm and urgent in the lobes of my ears. I don't know what it is about your lips that kiss my nose, my face, and nuzzle my neck, awakening the pores of my skin, leaving them humming. I don't know what it is about your tongue that slides sinuously down my body, waking up nipples from their deep sleep, making the navel pout with envy as your lips reach the silk of my thighs. I don't know what it is about your voice that begins as...

One of the poems I read at today's Philippine STAR and National Bookstore poetry readings. I wrote a draft of this poem ten years ago but lost it. This morning, it all came back to me the moment I woke up from my sleep, and wrote it down for today's reading. My Five-Year-Old Nephew Talks to Me Uncle, uncle, what happened to you? Why do you have a smile as sticky as glue? Then sometimes, my uncle, your smile is gone Like the parts of my toy gun that came undone. Some days you pass like a breeze in the house, your feet floating above the cat and the mouse. Then sometimes your face darkens like a cloud, you are so silent, and your door is locked. But one morning you went home with marks on your neck -- small, red marks That made my eyes widen and so I asked Yaya Mirren To spray Baygon in your room so the mosquito that made your neck bloom Into this red and sorry sight will no longer bite you -- ferociously -- at night.