By Murray Eiland Slowly, slowly, the race is won—no shot is fired, A war unfolds in silence, waged by hands unseen. New technology, like whispers on a moonlit tide, Shapes a future once beyond our reach. History’s brush, now patient, paints in softer strokes, Each generation a shifting canvas, While photographs whisper secrets— Faces once familiar, now subtly changed. Children who once mirrored their grandmothers’ eyes Dissolve into time, their features rearranged. What hidde

By J. Marahuyo how ironic I’ve cut thumb on “borrowed” blade, lifted from your desk the day you fled. the silver crescent scar on the base of your thumb is all I recall tatay insisting, hindi. okay lang. hindi kailangan nang stitches.* You did. I do.

By Leanna Webbe Receding light falling from a pallid mass of celestial bone. Shapeless in a void of gaping sky. In the fullest phase of her sojourn, loss had risen to the surface like seeping puss, opening new wounds. Yearning to exercise the art of floating away. From the ache of remembering what was always dreamt but never lived. Yet nowhere to hide. Nowhere to go. Now, a satellite of blunted fettle. Still looming, but shrinking. Emitting rays of mourning, co