E. Kristin Anderson | The Whole World Is a Church if You Can Start Another Fire

E. Kristin Anderson is a poet and glitter enthusiast living mostly at a Starbucks somewhere in Austin, Texas. She is the editor of Come as You Are, an anthology of writing on 90s pop culture (Anomalous Press), and her work has been published worldwide in many magazines. She is the author of nine chapbooks of poetry including Pray, Pray, Pray: Poems I wrote to Prince in the middle of the night (Porkbelly Press), Fire in the Sky (Grey Book Press), 17 seventeen XVII (Grey Book Press), and Behind, All You’ve Got (Semiperfect Press, forthcoming). Kristin is an assistant poetry editor at The Boiler and an editorial assistant at Sugared Water. Once upon a time she worked nights at The New Yorker.

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The Boiler

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Also by E. Kristin Anderson: Fire in the Sky She Witnesses: Found Poems 17 Days Pray Pray Pray: Poems I wrote to Prince in the middle of the night A Guide for the Practical Abductee A Jab of Deep Urgency

Previously in Glass: A Journal of Poetry: This Is How I Am A Monster Raiding The Worn Places Gone Cunt, Indictment More Than Biology I Ride Misandry Like a Bicycle Without a Helmet

August 2019

E. Kristin Anderson

The Whole World Is a Church if You Can Start Another Fire

after The X-Files We sweat in these places— wooden structures where men speak louder than oath spitting— a box of snakes to test us a box of tongues to say otherwise— there is no air conditioning not within walls like these where we mark time with photos hung on the wall set on the mantle. And you know not to trust like I know not to trust— can’t trust a single small town sign not to lead us to perdition— just a bit further down the road can’t trust the wonders when you sweat hot in rural America even if they tell you this is normal. This is not normal. This is not normal. Snakes manifest from air. From the womb. Dana, you wonder at your faith cross at your neck. I burn the curtains. I have no faith no children. Maybe this can be its own wonder. Not a death. And we are animals. We bite because we have to. Just as the snakes bite whether you believe or not leave welts. And you know trust is a myth you know fear is the myth we could not prove— smoke in the mountains fog on the ocean the hot breath of a righteous man pointing in two directions as if men’s tongues command us as if we would make that choice.

Each of the poems in my X-Files manuscript are based around a single episode. This is one of the first batch I wrote as I was deciding whether to take this on as a project, and it’s based on the episode "Signs and Wonders" from season 7 where Mulder and Scully investigate a serious of mysterious deaths that seem connected to a snake-handling church. I am fascinated with faith in all its forms, as I pretty much don’t have one. I grew up in a small town in Maine and spent a lot of time as a child in a Congregational church. As an adult I believe in witchcraft in its various forms. I believe in the universe being a powerful thing to appreciate with both science and wonder. And I believe in cultural spiritual practices — which is perhaps why snake handling fascinates me almost as much as Catholic reverence for various saints. (Thing I know: The patron saint of kidney disease is St. Benedict because the dude could not be poisoned. My kidneys, on the other hand, sometimes try to poison themselves.) Anyway, the thing that really gets me with this episode each time — I mean, other than all of the snakes — is that evil isn’t where you think it is, or where you think it should be. But even when evil has been identified and mostly thwarted, the women in this episode, in this small town, have no agency. None. And I think we are supposed to see that. It’s not that the episode has aged poorly or that in the dystopia that is 2019 I have a spidey sense for misogyny that is borderline obnoxious. There is something here that lays patriarchy bare. For all of us, in all it’s forms, regardless of faith.

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