Orar: To PrayAfter the hissed pleas, denunciations -the children just tucked in -perhaps her hand on his dress-shirt sleeve,brushed off, leaving a trace of cologne,impossible, it seemed, to wash offwith plain soap, he'd go, his feet lighton the gravel. In their room, she'd fallon her knees to say prayers composedto sound like praise; followingher mother's warning never to make demandsoutright from God nor a man.On the other side of the thin wall,I lay listening to the sounds I recognisedfrom an early age: knees on wood, shiftingthe pain so the floor creaked, and a woman'sconversation with the wind - that carriedher sad voice out of the open windowto me. And her words - if they did not riseto heaven, fell on my chest, where they areembedded like splinters of a crossI also carried.Women Who Love AngelsThey are thinand rarely marry, living outtheir long livesin spacious rooms, French doorsgiving view to formal gardenswhere aromatic flowersgrow in profusion.They play