On Stage
(first appeared in Riddle Fence #3, Winter 2009)
Twin suns burned overhead. I rinsed smoke
off the yellow lights. This was my world;
it was bound to dissolve into something else,
to acquire the possibility of shape and sound.
But death, that little tree... I lived under its
shade. I was its hired hand. I was its story.
And the carnival's dirty red mouth opened up.
In applause, its tongue swayed back and forth.
From Any Given Sidewalk
(first appeared in Fifth Wednesday Journal #4, Spring 2009)
A man must open his mouth wide enough
for the road to enter and lodge in his throat,
to sever his tongue in mid-process. The mouth
welds shut when he has swallowed the whole
block--that travelogue of hit and runs,
stray dogs, convenience stores, and dumpsters.
Makes a bad mouth water.
Makes a man reluctant to sing.
Falling
(first appeared in Coe Review, Fall 2009)
You will not see the people gawking
thirty-seven stories down.
But you can watch the flicker
of gentle lights, the church steeple
pointing its sole finger in the opposite
direction of your fall, the hush of curtains
blowing out of the open windows.
You will notice that the side of the building
has been streamlined to keep its insides
from spilling on the sidewalks.
Your whole body is your center of gravity.
You are neither heavy nor light.
A distraction of happiness, a memory perhaps
makes you look away from the ground.
You imagine strolling
on the street below, that ground
where a burned out streetlight stands
between you and the night
and turning your back
only to hear it rustle as you walk away.
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Kristine Ong Muslim has prose and poetry appearing in over five hundred publications, including Contrary Magazine, Hobart, Mary Journal, Narrative Magazine, Potomac Review, The Pedestal Magazine, and Southword. She has been nominated five times for the Pushcart Prize and four times for the Science Fiction Poetry Association's Rhysling Award.