In the moviesbodies jerk when hitwith bulletsmoving forward then backmachine-gun dancingbut in real lifeyou’re likely to hit the floorwhen the shooting startsproneas bullets rip your bodylying atop your babiesto protect themfrom a man who meansto destroyno matter whatyour babiesand you
#10 of 30 Poems in November to benefit the Center for New Americans. Today’s theme is DANCING.
A 30-year-old mother of four named Joann Ward is one of the dead in Sutherland Springs, Texas, along with two of her children. A story on yesterday’s NPR Morning Edition contained this from her father, quoting her oldest daughter Rhianna, nine years old, who survived:
“Mr. Lookingbill says the oldest daughter Rihanna, who escaped the church alive, has told the family how her mother pushed her down and ‘scooped up three of the babies and was laying on them when the shooter kept shooting through her to get all the babies.’"