I’m a true story

By Shagufta Mulla

but I didn’t always know that, so I looked to trees.
The deciduous ones beyond our backyard
in Pennsylvania—maybe maple, oak, or ash—
they shed their leaves, but I held my crumbling
brown even though all the green was gone.
When we moved to the desert, I knew this barren
heat was not my home, my body already hot
with rot. Compost—kitchen scraps and leaves.
Young cut-down timber turned to mulch. My dark
soil grew legs that knew how to move a body
despite my mind. Oregon. Here, I stop
to pick up pinecones. Did you know
their brown hands open when dry?
Close when wet.
They don’t readily crumble, so I hold
their seed-packed bodies with curiosity—
a true story, called Evergreen.

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Shagufta Mulla is the art editor of Peatsmoke Journal, a veterinarian-turned-content writer/editor for TIME Stamped, and an artist. Her poetry has appeared in Crab Creek Review, Blood Orange Review, the speculative poetry anthology NOMBONO by Sundress Publications, and elsewhere. Shagufta lives in Oregon, but you can find her on Instagram @s.mulla.dvm.