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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...

Puddle!

A message popped up from Emma’s phone with a sound that quickly caught her attention. She was about to finish cooking dinner when her mother messaged her, telling her that it would still take a while for her to come back home. She...

Familiar Encounter

FICTION — “Don’t be like Uncle Norm.” Those were my mother’s last words to me before I stepped foot inside the airport.

Random Pickings

Near Paradise

1. The main dusty road is a gray strip, parted in between rice paddies and bamboo groves, which in turn separate the sawali houses, which...

Missing People

in missing person’s cases, they only ever see the things that get left behind. never the people. lowercase letters surrounded by dried petals, a sorrowful silence filled the...

Two Poems on the Philippines

Sampaguita The flower sold;their faith restored. The Philippines: A living Beach House A living beach house is what the Philippines is.A place with endless fiestas and parties,...

TWO FOR PUNGAW (or “melancholy” in Bicolano)

A Filipino Stillness Not the light in Amorsolo’s canvas but the smile that kindles the frame. Not in dreams, where I lose you among crocodiles. Your...