Kristine Ong Muslim

Documentary

“N is for Neville who died of ennui.”
—from The Gashlycrumb Tinies by Edward Gorey

Doll breath, doll wag, doll tears—there’s nothing
in this room that’s made up. Every breadth, every
length procures its special character apart from its

dimension. When the dolls become us, there will be
no need for pretending. So we fix our hair, hold hands,
convince ourselves that there is nobody here but us.

Dream Elements from Parcel #14

Two successive summers
loosen a pigeon’s wings.

The broken wings self-regenerate
when you touch them, but the
newly formed pigeon has no beak.

You take it to the window sill.
A cat from nowhere pounces on it;

everything is eaten,
except for the wings.

More than six hundred poems and stories by Kristine Ong Muslim have been published or are forthcoming in over two hundred journals and magazines worldwide. Her work has recently appeared in Dog Versus Sandwich, Novelletum, Offcourse, Slow Trains, Sub-Lit, and The Driftwood Review.

“My first memory of a front porch is the one from the house where I spent my childhood. It overlooks a spacious yard full of tropical trees. Living in a crowded city apartment nowadays where a front porch is an impossibility, I imagine my favorite porch to be the one facing a vegetable garden filled with heirloom tomatoes.”