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Philippines Graphic Reader
Grandma
Her hands quiver
from sustained pressing of the beads.
When her voice starts to rise,
the light of the kerosene lamp amplifies
from an entirely lambent glow,
illuminating the details of
her room. Mound of frass
and dead winged
ants on the altar; archaic cross
nailed askew on a bole. Might these,
however...
Inverted Horizons
The sea and the sky
Swap their eternities
The waves with the clouds
And everywhere
Fishes fly birds swim
Farmers cast seines
Fishers sow seeds
Waterways counterflow
Waterfalls go into reverse
All of this unbeknown
To Siri Alexa and Cortana.
By the Brook
I
Nina’s eyes peer above the cover of a nameless book. She wasn’t reading, no. Her eyes are fixed on the distant figure of her mother sifting through a pile of old chattels left behind.
“Another river pebble. Your Lola really liked collecting the most...
The Quiet Animal
I couldn’t get off my mind, that morning when I was six years old, when my mother asked me to bury a dead animal. I held the carcass of a dead new-born pig, quiet inside the plastic bag. Its cold fleshy body was...
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...
