Rachael A. Zubal-Ruggieri

alt-text/image description: a sprouting ginger root sits in a small clear glass in front of a large window. A green lawn, many trees, a small amount of blue sky, and the edge of a picnic table appear in the background. A faded reflection of my arm is barely evident in the window.
alt-text/image description: a sprouting ginger root sits in a small clear glass in front of a large window. A green lawn, many trees, a small amount of blue sky, and the edge of a picnic table appear in the background. A faded reflection of my arm is barely evident in the window.

Micro Mutant Postcard #321

(listen to the poem, read by the author)

For Helen 

I’m Prometheus reborn, bound by my fears, in a constant state of gastronomical flux. Since defying those sick, sibylline deities, I realize not all elements are meant to be free. If the #WearyWorld falls apart, sorry for the #MutatedMesses. Helen tells me she has recipes.

 

Back to Top of Page | Back to Poetry | Back to Volume 20, Issue 1 – Summer 2026

alt-text/image description: skyline view from the outdoors patio space behind the Westin Hotel at Figueroa Street in Los Angeles. The sky is cloudy, and strings of lights criss-cross in front of a palm tree on the left with the FourFortyFour South Flower skyscraper towering in the background.Micro Mutant Postcard #338

(listen to the poem, read by the author)

Whenever my #MadMutantMask slips, I am a shade, a mere reflection. Whether dismayed or distraught, Deadman and I oughta have a Crip confab anyway, give a cheer to ourselves, the Unseen, the less corporeal beings, the #DiligentDiaphanous. I simply refuse to live under the boot.

alt-text/image description: skyline view from the outdoors patio space behind the Westin Hotel at Figueroa Street in Los Angeles. The sky is cloudy, and strings of lights criss-cross in front of a palm tree on the left with the FourFortyFour South Flower skyscraper towering in the background.

Back to Top of Page | Back to Poetry | Back to Volume 20, Issue 1 – Summer 2026

About the Author

Rachael A. Zubal-Ruggieri (she/her/hers, they/them/theirs) is a long-time employee at Syracuse University. She is Assistant Editor of Wordgathering: A Journal of Disability Poetry and Literature and Managing Editor for Nine Mile Arts & Literary Magazine. She co-created (with Diane R. Wiener) “Cripping” the Comic Con, the first of its kind interdisciplinary and international symposium on disability and popular culture, previously held at SU. At conferences and as a guest lecturer for many years, Rachael has presented on the X-Men comic books, popular culture, and disability rights and identities from her perspective as a Neurodivergent person and as a Mad Queer Crip. Entries in their “Micro Mutant Postcard Project (MMP),” as well as other prose, have been published in Wordgathering. Other MMP entries have been published in Stone of Madness, Sabr Tooth Tiger Magazine and the Coin-Operated Press Tea Zine. Their most recent publications include two articles (co-authored with Diane R. Wiener) in the Journal of Literary & Cultural Disability Studies‘ Special Issue, “Cripping Graphic Medicine I: Negotiating Empathy and the Lived Experiences of Disability in and through Comics” (Volume 17, Issue 3), and a forthcoming book chapter (co-authored with Diane R. Wiener) in the Palgrave Handbook of Disability in Comics and Graphic Narratives.