Learning How to Pray

by Lisa Marguerite Mora

She hands me a china cup, steaming with black tea, sweetened

with condensed milk. At age four, it’s the best thing I have ever tasted.

She is my mother and we have been apart a long time. Outside the rain, 

tiny horse hooves move across a gray sky. The world is good and clean. 

Wet pavement, salt air breath of the ocean close by.  

Its giant sigh does not disturb me.

Living here with my mother brings everything to life.

She’s magic.

She places a round stone into an earthen pot, soon a yellow star flower

lives there, open mouthed as I am at my mother’s abilities.

I will learn more of how the world gives such gifts.

If I wait and watch, soon I will know a lot.

I should have been more specific with God. But no one taught me how to pray properly,

to give thanks for what I had. The earth and God will take their due.

I can’t remember if I prayed for her the day she died. I can’t remember

if I prayed for myself. The rain clattered outside like horse hooves.

There wasn’t much else between me and the life pressing upon me.

But still, I can’t tell you what I’ve learned.

Listen, I will tell you what I do know.

There is a trap door leading to the worn floors of heaven. Once in awhile I catch 

an angel there and its wings brush against the throb of my temple.

It folds its wings and arms and waits for me to either recognize it

or let it go.

So patient. So unrelenting.

So willing to forgive.

* * * * *

"Learning How to Pray" was published previously in a different form by ONTHEBUS Literary Journal.

Lisa Marguerite Mora has had work published in Rattle, ONTHEBUS, Rebelle Society, The Urban Howl, Cultural Weekly, Public Poetry Series, Literary Mama, and California Quarterly, among many others including a Blue Mountain Arts Poetry Prize. Recently she has finished a first novel and is at work on second. Lisa studied with author Carolyn See at UCLA where she received a Bachelors in English with a Creative Writing Emphasis. A story editor and consultant, she also conducts creative writing workshops in the Los Angeles area.