Reader, take heed: These are no ordinary poems about childhood. In a series of secular prayers, Cynthia Cruz alludes to a girlhood colored by abuse and a brother's death. A beautifully understated sense of menace and damage pervades this vivid, nonlinear tale. About author(s): Cynthia Cruz was born in Germany and raised in Northern California. She holds degrees from Mills College (B.A.) and Sarah Lawrence College (M.F.A.), and has received numerous residencies to Yaddo and the MacDowell Colony. Her poems have appeared widely in journals and anthologies, including The Iowa Anthology of New American Poetries.