Elias Kerr Presents trans [re]formation – part 1

The Stemmler/Dennis LGBT& Award, established by Sigma Tau Delta members Dr. Kevin Stemmler and Dr. Larry Dennis, honors exceptional creative and critical works that represent or celebrate the LGBTQ+ community. This annual award addresses the historical marginalization of LGBTQ+ voices in academia, providing recognition for both creative and scholarly contributions. The award’s name incorporates an ampersand, inspired by GLAAD’s “&Together” campaign and the work of G&LR, symbolizing inclusivity and unity among diverse identities. This year’s winners were selected from over 120 eligible submissions for presentation at the annual Sigma Tau Delta/English Honor Society Convention.  Submissions were evaluated by LGBTQ+ faculty judges in the Society.  For more information, see English.org, “Awards”

As part of Lambda Literary’s partnership with Sigma Tau Delta, we are proud to celebrate the achievements of Stemmler/Dennis Award winners like Elias Kerr.

an excerpt from trans [re]formation (a crown of crowns)

A1

Every memory is a silver bullet
and I am covered in holes. My mother points
the gun, fires rounds with every word
and still expects me to withstand her 
blows. I grew up always standing 
in warzones — shrapnel and debris chased me
in daylight, and at night I would watch 
for her footsteps blocking the light under my bedroom
door. Handle hinges pull
covers over my face, surrendered 
to violation and you keep
violating me. I still believe there could be love 

somewhere, buried
in my mothers garden.

A2

In my mother’s garden
there are snakes and I used to eat her apple 
pie every September. Sweetness has always been her
way of hiding herself and cinnamon has always been
my favorite spice. The black stovetop still holds
a cracked dark red Autumn Wreath 
candle, she’d lit only once before
and the chip of a dinner plate, a child's 

first missing tooth. Every November, my
mother would make us take a christmas card
photo, and pulled my spine tightly,
until I couldn’t breathe without her hand
moving my first few intercostals, fingers that
lie in the spaces between the rest.

A3

I lay to rest in the spaces
between each finger, counting
mountains and valleys I trace like paths 
carved through fields for telephone towers;
I do not know nature without. My first love 
took her turn with a blade to my skin, fleshed
out trails along each rib and sternal bone, laced
with rivers of hemoglobin. Her lips drank
from the pooling, suckled the cartilage until it was
white and stained, like teeth after sipping too much red
wine. Moving blood has always been a sign that I am

alive — like water, muddy footprints pressing leaves
deeper into the soil, hands pressing deeper against my ilium.
She wanted to use this body as a grave.

A4

I used to think this body was a grave
and every unanswered “I love you” my mother 
said, I dug deeper to fit. How can you 
love a person who killed your daughter? I
used to be afraid of funeral services
and saying goodbye and leaving
home and my mother threatened to tie me
to her side, even after this body dies —
but there wasn’t a rope 
strong enough to keep me bound
to my twin bed. With feet hanging
over the edge, I was always 
worried that my life would be
preyed from my hands.

A5

I pray with my hands
running across ridges and tectonic
plates that chart the landscape of this body,
palms covered in a thick layer of burnt
sienna clay. When it hardens I am dust
covered and hopeful again 
that I can mold myself into anything
but the little girl I saw 
in my dreams, still planting peonies 
for all the people I wasn’t 
able to save, hyacinths for all the apologies 
that stung like bees sitting
on my tongue, 
that always find me, every night. 

A6

I found myself again that night, every
waxing and waning expression flashes
a crooked smile in my dreams. I know
what it’s like to watch the memory of a person
start to fade — I hold on to skin
blemishes, the distance between each eye
and the shades of brown hair spun 
with strands of gray. The voice is the first
to go, but the sound of a scream is 
the same for everyone, and soon I can’t tell
who’s real anymore. I am not afraid of
sleep — I know to expect visitation 
like faith in deliverance, angels guiding souls
between each bedsheet and a casket.

A7

Between caskets made from bedsheets 
and an asylum in a holy house, I found 
comfort in watching the sky 
change through window screens and stained
glass portraits of saints and sinners. There is always
beauty to a rainstorm and I wish for thunder 
to hide my mother’s footsteps. Sound is a muscle: 
iambia, dactylic, each beat a heart pumping,
filling again. I have always wanted 

to buy a church and grow
little yellow flowers I can press 
between book pages, trying to save something 
beautiful even though it’s dying, and decorate each
gravestone my loved ones have turned to pillows.

A8

I lay my head on a pillow, a gravestone 
for you, in every dream I have where
I can’t quite reach you. I beg for another 
minute to say I’m sorry or goodbye, 
do you even know the man I am 
today? And maybe this is 
why I’ve always woken up still tired; sleep

is just another place I don’t know 
whether to stay or not. In this world I have a choice —
to pull the trigger of a gun, watch you fall
with blooming blood bouquet-ing from your chest,
or turn it towards a wilted version 
of myself instead, forever damned to carry
the grief of being stuck between these cycles.

A9

We are stuck in a cycle of grief — her daughter 
mourned a mother
and father the same year 
they mourned their daughter, and yet we are still 
alive and now they have a son.
I know I will mourn my mother with every
turn down familiar streets and every change 
from summer to fall. Do they sweep leaves and pine
needles off a makeshift headstone I carved
with my fingernails, as they pulled me into the house
I tried so hard to flee from? Or is an empty bed
enough of a grave? I can picture a girl, young, head turned 

to watch for light disappearing between floor and door,
wishing for the death of one body.

A10

I used to wish for the death of this body
and treated it like I was only passing
through. Transgender people know this all
too well — our skin is as temporary as the love
my neighbor has for me. I know 
my father still smells like morning 
breath and unsweetened pumpkin coffee
and leaves slowly rotting 

away. I am slowly rotting 
away between two or three showers, 
everyday scrubbing at inflictions until I am just
a pile of skin and bones, and everything 
that has happened is one step closer
to my mother, to the death of me.

A11

I don’t blame my mother for the death of me —
but sometimes I blame her for being born
the first time, and that’s why I’ve tried
to reinvent myself further from her each time. 

Failing to replace the hole she left, I sunk
my teeth into countless women who I believed
were willing to listen, and watch them break
me into even smaller pieces, no mother would be
able to sew together again. When you are
trans, you become your own mother, and father
and sister and brother, and part time doctor, armchair
psychologist trying to take fragments of picture

frames, and piece them together, hung for
a stranger in what used to be a home.

A12

Strangers will ask me if home was
“always that bad?” My grandmother
used to sleep on the couch during snow storms,
and in the mourning time, the sky
and my mother would demand silence from our mouths
still aching from summers’ sweet angel food cake.

I am still searching for the silence
of shoveled snow my father piled on street sides
and spoonfuls of mini marshmallows
floating around lukewarm hot chocolate. My body
burns for it after being in the cold too long —
I listen to it tell me how “this
will hurt until you can learn
to expect the pain.”

A13

I accept the pain 
of knowing I will never be my fathers 
son, a brother to my siblings, a man 
to my mother. In a past life I am god-
fearing and feeble-minded and today
I sometimes wish to be 
like all my past lives. This self
replaced god with my mother and the outcome
was the same — I’m still angry. 
My scripture is written on my body by
scars from surgeons, and lovers who devoured flesh,
and iliac bones my mother will claim were once her
daughters, and a son who’s 
mother will never bury me whole.

A14

I’ve buried my mother my whole
life, only recently to dig her up again.
When we moved into my childhood 
home in ‘05, we used to play in the dirt 
along the walkway, and in summertime I dug
up a statue of mother Mary, no bigger than my palm.
Years later, I wondered if we all end
up like this; bodies passing
through different homes and left 
behind in earth we all will
return to. The only thing we all have 
in common is an end, is becoming 
one body, spread across sand and silt, 
and I find myself buried here, again.

A15

A14 I find myself burying her again —
A2 I my mother, in the garden, 
A3 I laid to rest until I need space 
A4 I for another grave. I used
A5 I to pray her hands 
A6 I would stop finding me every night,
A7 I between caskets made from bedsheets 
A8 I and a pillow for a gravestone. We are stuck
A9 I in a cycle of grief — her daughter 
A10 I wishes for the death of one body, my mother
A11 I for the death of mine. Home is
A12 I a stranger, and I 
A13 I always feel this pain, expect
A1 I every memory to be a silver bullet.

ELIAS KERR is a Transmasculine poet, who writes under the pen name E Kerr. They graduated from the University of Scranton in 2023, with a masters degree in occupational therapy, and double minors in English and writing. They are the recipient of the inaugural 2022 Stemmler/Dennis LGBT& Award, 2025 Sigma tau Delta Alumni award for creative works, and a second place award for the 2026 Stemmler/Dennis LGBT& Award in Creative Works. Their work has been featured in various publications, including Rappahannock Review, Another Chicago Magazine, and the Hollins Critic and their debut collection, trans [re]incarnation, was released in April, 2023, with Mason Jar Press. Kerr lives and writes in Scranton, PA, while working as a pediatric and early intervention occupational therapist.