New Shape of Family

An out of focus camera photo of a Christmas tree fully lit

By Emi Bergquist

Instigated by brightless days like 

childhood and how far we’ve come 

from trying to figure out who was playing 

good cop or bad cop and aren’t all cops 

from that town the same kind of bastard anyway? 

Yet we cannot easily forget what was once familiar -

the dust in our lungs and dirt on the bottom

of our feet, the smallness we felt surrounded 

by mountains with their looming shadows, 

calling the basement of that pink house 

on the corner of despair and loneliness home 

and then running away from it.  This is to say, 

the good times were like Christmas morning:

the smell of Swedish pancakes wafting from 

our grandparent’s kitchen, that pleated 

knit tablecloth from the 70’s on the dining room 

table where we sat and said grace before we ate from 

those blue paisley patterned plates, and Mor-Mor 

with her bald head and silver cap tooth smile.

Someone once told me that it is not

where we come from but who we come from 

that matters. But how do you reclaim an identity 

you never knew when the only tradition 

you have is the inheritance of your blood?

This is to say, we now stand on the other side

of those memories, recycling the past 

to create this new shape of family. I watch 

as your son discovers his own cleverness 

around every corner, growing with the same 

sense of wild freedom you once planted in me. And

from these fields, we’ve harvested more than dreams.

Emi Bergquist is a Brooklyn based poet originally from Idaho. Emi is an active associate of the Poetry Society of New York, a regular cast member of The Poetry Brothel, an editor of Milk Press Books, and is a current collaborator with the Pandemic Poems Project. She has recent work in Oxford Public Philosophy, What Rough Beast, Oroboro, Passengers Journal, and others. She also regularly writes commissioned poetry and is currently donating all proceeds to charity and social justice organizations. For more information on collaborations and commissions, you can reach her at emilykbergquist@gmail.com.