In the flesh of the church with stained glass
windows holding specks of stolen sunlight,
you laid in a satin cloud, mahogany wood
engraved with outlines of gold above you.

There are several timeworn fragments of you
in my mind – I only remember your soft,
plump toes, your feathery, abundant hair,
and your eyes that held the entire Pacific ocean.

It’s hard to get to know a baby in just eleven
weeks, though, but you were my cousin. Our
blood was the same tint of scarlet and maroon,
and the same spirals of genetic information
was bottled in our cells. But for eleven weeks
I cared more about my hamster than visiting you.

Now, almost ten years later, I am in tears
sitting in the upstairs hallway because I found
one of your baby blankets in the closet
with sewn-on fabric clouds. It sends me back
to the flesh of the church and how the smallest
size casket mounted over the rest of us.