I Dream About Your Family, Often: Emi, Jackie

April 2, 2020 Kate Belew with Emi, Jackie (New York City)

I dream about your family, often.

In purple hues and covered in lilies

and playing the banjo, coffee tin in the kitchen,

your father is proud, so proud of me.

He smiles and belly laughs like thunder

the crashing of the gods bowling upstairs.

And your mother, she's burning her fires

to keep our bodies warm, she feeds us old stories

on a train pretending to be a fork. 

I love dog violets in their domestic jars

the way I imagine you'll keep them when this ends.