Deanna Larsen
“First of all, from what I understand from doctors [pregnancy from rape] is really rare… If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”
The Rape of the Sabine Women by by Giambologna, in the Loggia dei Lanzi, Florence
I tried to identify
the exact animal that lives in my chest.
I only know its fangs—
hollow and thick,
gnawing on ribs.
I was not born with this animal.
This is my rapist’s feral child,
roaming my body like
a grass-stripped savannah.
I cannot catch it.
I cannot soothe it.
I cannot kill it.
How often must it be fed?
Every day for seventeen years.
What does it eat?
Bone. Organ. Muscle. Blood.
It devours everything.
Does it ever sleep?
I tried to drown it in liquor,
but this only enraged it.
How do you live alongside a carnivore?
How do you construct a cage?
Deanna Larsen's work has appeared in PANK, Blood Orange Review, Neon, and numerous other publications. She has been nominated for two Pushcart Prizes and her poetry manuscript Aphrodite on a First Date was a finalist in the Exploding Pinecone Chapbook Competition.
Northeast Review 