Poetry By Suri Deering

Anders Pearson CC




​Death Spiral Sonnet
After Diane Seuss

My sister despises ants. Especially the ones that bite, the ants that have the foresight to come inside when it’s cold. She told me that the number of times she was a nonconsenting sexual partner outnumbers her consensual count. Anxious thoughts slice through her psyche like the scars on her thigh, where the trauma coagulates in her veins and damns the flow to her amygdala. Now she reflects on the times she was raped and, is she remembering wrong? What if she was the rapist? A rapist a rapist a rapist a rapist rapist rapist rapist. A brain can only self-flagellate so much until the intrusive thoughts become an abusive un      -     reality. Thoughts of these assaults keep her up at night. I pray that with each of these ant-men join the Ouroboros ant parade, the death spiral, the inevitable consequence of a single “mistake.” I wonder how vile men are attracted to her like ants to sweet, sugary nectar–but nectar is intentional. Next time my sister will be rife with intention; she will be the fungus Ophiocordyceps unilateralis sensu lato, and she will take over the ant brain of every man who displeases her and force their demise. I imagine a world where every heinous villain who made my sister believe herself as evil becomes a knurl on a pole, fungus protruding from their skull in the shape of a girl.

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Suri Deering is an MFA student at UMKC. She lives in Kansas with her fiancé, two cats, and an overly-anxious dog. She has one research publication, but is currently working on creative projects. She enjoys reading, being outside, watching movies, and occasionally, writing.
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