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HOW TO PRAY Almond branches, wilting over the girl, look as if they are bowing, and the bend of her neck follows, or perhaps (it might be too much to say) her neck bends and the branches follow. She’s only a girl, after all, walking without permission beneath a dangerously dim sky, in a grove large enough to lose a girl in—the roadside fruit stands shut up and emptied, only a few cars heading home. It’s  in southern California and my mother’s run away. She’s packed two pears, her new white dress, and a bible in the basket at the head of her bike, ridden until the lots stretched so vast they couldn’t be contained by borders, the sidewalks sprawling into gravel alongside the highway. She’s gone looking for Canaan, or someplace closer to heaven than Orange County, a dirt backyard enclosed by cyclone fences, her tanned brothers brooding on the back porch, their large, dark eyes  already done. She wants an angel to arrive—sleep without the dream of a distant house on fire across a narrow valley, smoke rising so quickly it blackens the sky. She can’t yet read the gathering clouds, the fever of consummation. In the almond orchard, her head bowed, wilted blossoms scent her long, dark hair, her damp skin. My mother doesn’t know how to pray for what she wants, only to imitate the wind in her breath. Irrigation ditches draw long, dry sighs. The blooms threaten to catch fire. Between rows, dirt is mapped with tiny tributaries—not the lines that lead to Canaan and its burdens—not water, but a promise of water, where water will run when it rains.  ...

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