SARAH ORMAN

Recent Events
May 14, 2023

On Friday, they said the Honduran woman
in Cleveland, Texas, who used her body
to shield a baby and a two-year-old from AR-15 bullets
was a hard worker and just wanted to give her kids
a good life. On Saturday, I heard eight people killed
and I thought of another woman’s body
folded into child’s pose under a bush
at an outlet mall in Allen. When a rifle round
enters the body, they said, it twists and carves a path
through flesh, which is why the Allen woman
had no face. In fact, the story was about a Brownsville man
driving his car into some people from Venezuela.
Then they said the president would meet
with Congress about the death ceiling.
I thought, it’s about time.
But I had confused debt with death.
Today is Mother’s Day and when I wake,
I remember a woman of valour,
who can find? I rise in the dark
because there is thunder
and the dog is scared.