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 A Prayer for Intercession There is comfort in a needle plunged and drawn, each stitch a whisper and a hush. I work to the quilt that will fill a hollow cradle with splinters and seams and prayers spurned. I mend and rip and mend again. Every aproned lady sweeping in the sun remembers her dough sleeps in the crock. They drop their brooms to tuck and pat four brown bellies in a row. I watch them carry their warm, heavy loaves as I stand knee-deep in August and afternoon, holding buckets of turnips and walnut hulls. I want a sweet potato baby with podded pea toes. I want to hold her in my crooked, spooned arms, rock her in my hips, my empty bowl. ...

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