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Philippines Graphic Reader
TWO POEMS ON FATHERHOOD
Shoes
Paper cutouts folded to fit
my back pocket. I carry them along
through bus ride and train tracks.
I’ll be gone for a few hours.
My daughters look forward to this
annual ritual. Now they need the stitch
and leather of a tougher kind. Last year’s
is now a hole...
Episodes
There are impulses that come at unforeseen moments long after loving and losing someone. However, these impulses carry deceptive circuits that lead us to believe that memory can finally take a backseat and we can now console ourselves with the needed composure we...
What a Child Cannot Learn from Books
When you wound a leather sofa
with the forbidden razor blade,
you see no cut but a blooming,
cotton pulp breaches skin, first peeps
and bursts out almost in delight.
When you try to punch through a pane
in a capiz window, you will
be awed by how something so...
House of Leaves
“A week ago, just before you arrived, DongJosé,” my grandfather was telling me in between locomotive puffs from his rolled lomboy cigar. “A damn wakwak tore a hole in my nipa roof.”
I nodded as I feasted on my hot breakfast. I had arrived...
The Bullet Wakes from Its Cruel Shell
I dance through air with a deadly grace.
Yet mourn the lives I cannot replace.
Once a vessel of power, now burdened with guilt,
I pierced through dreams, where innocence wilt.
A mother's love fades into the night,
Leaving children alone, lost in their light.
A father’s laugh, now...
The One-Night Stand at the Frankfurt Book Fair
Maribel glanced at her plane seat, grateful that she had the aisle seat and only one seat beside her. Her seat mate was a young woman who had her ear buds on. Maribel was grateful for that, too; she didn’t have to chitchat...
