How To: Hear a Heartbeat Across the Atlantic

I sometimes wish I had a stethoscope,
equip and long enough to listen to her panic attacks
three thousand miles away,
and know exactly when she is in distress.

I listen as hard as I can,
my heart crawling outside my chest,
holding my breath in cupped hands for me.

And I swear

I can hear the trees growing in my woods.
The deer moving pace from across town, and

my future daughter’s feet pounding the ground on foreign soil,
a butterfly nipping at the sun,
venus fly trap claiming mosquito,

my soft, maple-baby using tears as paint, an ocean away,
the river styxs moving underground in Hades,
the pre-k class in recess a few miles away,

my sweet-growing buttercups spilling love over
on a busy street in Italy,
taken over by the beauty of language
and art of a life

I’m not in.
She is so full of life and hope and breath;
yet her ghost haunts me with gentleness
every moment I am waking.

She is alive

and so I cannot hear
her heartbeat.

 

Emma Paris is a 17-year-old poet hailing from Putney, Vermont. She has been writing poetry intensively for over 7 years. Some of her most recent publications and accomplishments include Gold and Silver Keys from Scholastic Art and Writing Awards 2024, poetry published in Chautauqua “Close Encounters” 2023, and attending the Governors Institute of the Arts 2022 in Castleton, Vermont. She is an alum of the Ruth Stone House Next Galaxy Retreat. Emma has been published in The Brattleboro Reformer and VTDigger through the Young Writers Project, and her poetry has been featured in Poems Around Town and Poem City programs across the country. She has poetry in the upcoming issues of Zaum Magazine’s 28th Issue and Wyldcraft Literary Magazine’s Spring/Summer Issue, respectively. Emma is a Youth Poet Laureate of Vermont 2024 runner-up.