Thumb over the halo-halo layers ghostly over the seated pink mini

sequencing midshot & close-up 
dealing in roots & stems of derivative morphology 
much loving repeating has to be in a being 
kalis to kaliskis long tail scrape to fish scale 
remix the root sulat to will write susulat 
separate meat from bone swings himay into himaymay 
one sun loops araw to araw-araw on the daily 
backward baligtad goes into continual babalibaligtad tumbling 
ulol just recursively mad 
one is ang magandang puno two ang mga magagandang 
pagka- superduper to the nth degree kagagandang tree 
most beautiful none more so anywhere 
gotta inflect the very dang-n-ah in magandang maganda 
so that one can listen to all the repeating in every one 
staggered flames nagluto stutter molecules nagluluto 
magluluto times time will cook together object & focus 
lutuin niluto niluluto lulutuin 
fiber strings of sound clips into yielding

I will tell an old story of my name 

If you hang around a set of questions meant to fill an 
unknown void, certain stories get old. If it weren’t for 
people who associate agential speech with political 
agency & other people who chime in about the 
contrivances of human declarations of freedom 
people like me wouldn’t know to be ashamed of 
lack & abjection, wouldn’t differentiate from old 
stories told around the unknown void, wouldn’t want 
a way out from talk about great-grandparents who had 
names, home towns, personality traits. Knowing opens 
an unknown void around which others without a 
personal history gather to tell old stories of being 
politicized & historicized

From Teeter by Kimberly Alidio (Nightboat Books, 2023). Reprinted with permission of Nightboat Books.