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Philippines Graphic Reader

The Gardener

Flowers grew in the cracks of the gardener’s calloused hands as she glanced at the garden she cultivates She never wanted to disrupt their growth, yet they need...

Lighter

It was Kimmy’s last night at work. Before the shift ended, she grabbed a box in her locker where she kept all the lighters...

On Session Road, Remembering Mike de Leon’s Kung Mangarap Ka’t Magising

The projector hums. In the theater’s dusk, a flicker unspools a world. The scent of rice wine and stale popcorn grounds him, a shadow of a...

Echoes of the Blue Fire

Our ancestors believed the butat-iw were bad omens. They appeared when I was alone—wild orbs of floating blue fire, the size of my Baba’s fist....

Still Life with Twelve Sunflowers, after Scrolling

Van Gogh’s sunflowers  — all twelve of them  — so lively, lush, standing, bending; they do not submit to ikebana’s poise and posture — golden — no — bronze — beautiful yet...

The Weight of Small Things

Fear is at the back of her mind, a shimmering heat in the distance, a glowing ember in the dark. Silently acknowledged but never...

GUERILLA DOWNPOUR

There is no warning— the sky, a sudden insurgent, opens with                     guerrilla downpour. Torrential rain, an unrelenting witness, assaults the fragile spines of trees and the quiet bones of houses. Water...

Salt Prayer

"There must be something strangely sacred about salt.It is in our tears and in the sea."from SAND AND FOAM (1926) by Khalil Gibran Matthew 5:13—...

Something More

BY THIS TIME next year, Teresita could be elsewhere, unmindful of the biting cold. She could see herself walking along a cobblestone path strewn...

Mawr

“Do we ever win, Mom?” Raniw smiled at the young ginger cat, barely out of kittenhood, who asked the question. “No, Runi, we will never win....