Shagufta Mulla

I Am That I Am (Exodus 3:14)

When I return to the quiet wholeness

that I am without thoughts, I’m holding

a gila woodpecker feather—

black, white, black bars—dropped just outside

my driver side door at the hotel.

I don’t live here anymore. Phoenix,

I used to say I hate you—your paternal heat—

but I was already inflamed with an unfinished past,

unfinished pain that birthed incessant

thoughts, thoughts, thoughts.

When I return to my little desert treasure—

daughter made of stardust—

small enough to fit in a cupped palm,

big enough to evoke God(-size awe),

     I Am

watching a woman hold a feather—

her little-girl-heart looking up—

watching her search the many mesquite trees,

but there are no birds around—

just a million little leaves

that let (almost all) the light shine through.

Shagufta Mulla is the art editor of Peatsmoke Journal, a veterinarian, and a copy editor for online publications. Her poetry appears or is forthcoming in Five Points, Wild Roof Journal, Okay Donkey, Stoneboat Literary Journal, and elsewhere. She won second place in poetry for the 2025 Tucson Festival of Books Literary Awards, and in 2021 she won Blood Orange Review’s poetry prize. A former Arizonan, Shagufta now lives in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. Instagram.

Sara Daniels

Cross Stitch

Sara Daniels is a writer, educator, and amateur cold water swimmer living in Marquette, Michigan. Her work has appeared on Poets.org, Pleiades, Foglifter, and her grandmother's fridge.

Samantha DeFlitch

Consider This

Samantha DeFlitch is the author of Confluence (Broadstone Books, 2021). Her poems have appeared in New England Review, The Missouri Review, Colorado Review, Four Way Review, Appalachian Review, and On the Seawall, among others. She is a 2025 Artist in Residence at Acadia National Park, and she has received fellowships from the Vermont Studio Center and the Martha's Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing. Her work has been supported by the Bread Loaf Environmental Writers' Conference, the Audubon Artist Residency at Hog Island, and the University of New Hampshire, where she completed her MFA. She lives in New Hampshire.