The Third Stranger

by Kristine Ong Muslim

First appeared in Midrash, a Not One of Us special publication, February 2007

She claimed to be
the mother of the oceans.
We laughed at her
until she opened her mouth,
and we heard
the rush of the waves,
the sloshing of a thousand fishes.
In her breath was the smell of brine.

Kristine Ong Muslim‘s work has appeared or is forthcoming in more than four hundred publications worldwide, including Aberrant Dreams, Abyss & Apex, Alternative Coordinates, Dark Recesses, Space & Time, and Tales of the Talisman. She has received several Honorable Mentions in Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror as well as five nominations for the Pushcart Prize and four for the Science Fiction Poetry Association’s Rhysling Award.