Infinite Branches: Speculative Queer Disability Poetry in Conversation
A Round-Robin Series Guest Edited by Toby MacNutt
Table of Contents for This Page
Photo by Ivan Samkov, adapted by Interstellar Flight Magazine
burn (kiss) the heretic
by
Elena Sichrovsky
by
Elena Sichrovsky
oleander hickey
striptease mid-wedding
flaunt my new coathanger body
belladonna translates to beautiful woman
asscrack full of rock salt and paper cranes
sex organ bouquet for the next bride to catch
starfish spread on stone altar
god save me from being a beautiful woman
gasping groom licks my sharpened spine to hilt
pierced tongue chases plague mice in my pussy
beautiful women don’t get to hold throats
cut tongue tip on needle lace veil
summon shedevil mid-orgasm
hemlock vows
Formatting Description for Accessibility
Right aligned. Each line stands alone, and fades arrhythmically line-by-line, lighter and lighter text, darker, lighter again, often gradating, sometimes abrupt
Poem Text for Accessibility
burn (kiss) the heretic
oleander hickey
striptease mid-wedding
flaunt my new coathanger body
belladonna translates to beautiful woman
asscrack full of rock salt and paper cranes
sex organ bouquet for the next bride to catch
starfish spread on stone altar
god save me from being a beautiful woman
gasping groom licks my sharpened spine to hilt
pierced tongue chases plague mice in my pussy
beautiful women don’t get to hold throats
cut tongue tip on needle lace veil
summon shedevil mid-orgasm
hemlock vows
Poem Acknowledgments
This poem first appeared as “Lithium” in Eating Out Anne Sexton (Ghost City Press, 2024)
Author’s Statement in Response to Petra's "Blackberry Ball"
Petra’s “Blackberry Ball” pulses with invocation and defiance in rhythm to “burn(kiss) the heretic”. The first time I read “Blackberry Ball,” I was immediately transported to a dark woods with flames in my hair and long-buried fury foaming at the surface. “Spit the thorn-defended shrub/until this queer ass brain twitches into screams/velvet-magenta jouissance”, Petra writes, a twin to my penultimate line “cut tongue tip on needle lace veil/summon shedevil mid-orgasm”.
Petra commandeers nature like a creator — lavender and lava, orchids and nitrite, a soiled earth that’s both terrible and inevitable. It’s like an unholy gathering in the field opposite the unholy wedding in my poem; the neighbors you’d borrow not a cup of sugar from, but a vial of blood when you’ve run out for the next hex.
I’ve always loved the insolence of witches. “burn(kiss) the heretic” was originally titled “Lithium”, from my collection Eating Out Anne Sexton where each poem was named after a psych med I am or have been on. When I was on lithium, it was a very low dose to augment the antidepressants I was also on. My friends would always say, “Isn’t lithium the thing that’s in batteries?” It became a running joke, the irreverent imagery of swallowing batteries to cure myself, like being taken to the sea to remedy hysteria. In “burn(kiss) the heretic” I wanted to echo that energy in a way that was both obscene and revealing. The gradients of text colors tell three different stories, some shouted and some whispered: “sex organ bouquet for the next bride to catch/starfish spread on stone altar/god save me from being a beautiful woman”.
I was raised and educated in a hyper-conservative cult that propagated pretty much every kind of oppression you can think of; it’s an upbringing that spawned a late-20s PTSD diagnosis and my continuous medication/treatment journey. As a queer genderfluid disabled writer, I’ve become the exact visage of a sinner that nine-year-old me would’ve prayed for God to smite or deliver. With “burn(kiss) the heretic,” I get to flaunt that so-called sin almost deliriously. I think sacrilege has become a primary source of joy in my life now; my body is a temple that’s off-limits to gods but welcome to the monstrous.
About the Author
Elena Sichrovsky (she/they/it) is a queer disabled author and cult survivor. Their writing explores religious trauma, grief, and identity through the lens of body horror. You can read more published work on its website www.elena.sichrovsky.com.
About the Series “Infinite Branches: Queer Speculative Disability Poetry in Conversation” — Guest Edited by Toby MacNutt
Infinite Branches is a round-robin anthology of queer disabled poets. Poets choose their own poems in response to the poet preceding them, and each group of poets concludes with a discussion of their work in the context of each other. Facilitation for choices, statements, and discussion was done by Toby MacNutt.
