Spring 2009, Volume 6

Poetry by Kristine Ong Muslim

Bats

They flapped, pair after pair
of surging packets of air,
until everything had rippled
to the size of black.

The death of the moon
was a messy affair;
the cries of the bats
rose out in one pitch,
one darkness, one song.

Eels

They are silver arcs of light, tongues
of reckless rivers, slick ocean cords
disentangling with every wave crest.

There are two ends to an undulating
bridge: one unties the water current,
the other drags it and drowns.

Hawks

They do not
deviate from the path, the trail
that leads to the prey.
They waste more time.
They rustle—
each feather
wind-blown, each eye
glazed.
The deadly arc swoops in.


BIO:  My publication credits and recent acceptances include more than seven hundred poems and stories in over three hundred publications worldwide, such as Bellevue Literary Review, Chronogram, Cordite, Grasslimb, Narrative Magazine, New Madrid, The Pedestal Magazine, Scrivener Creative Review, and Turnrow. I have been nominated three times for the Pushcart Prize and received several Honorable Mentions in Year's Best in Fantasy and Horror.