Death in the Inland Empire

Southern California sunlight
Knifes the clear windows
Of the Redlands Church of Christ,
Burns my grandmother’s coffin
Bright at the alterless front
Of the Puritan sanctuary.
Beside me, my mother,
Tall and thin as a knife herself,
Keens and wails, animalistic,
While my father looks simply on
With the stunned helplessness of love.
This is my earliest memory--
I’m four, and have one life less.