"Living Forever"
by Laura Stott
I don’t want to die.
I want to stand forever at the edge
of this river, feet in the cold,
holding the hand of my daughter
where every so often, one of us reaches
into the water and pulls out a stone.
Look. Look at this one, we say.
From under the surface,
we find something smooth
and shining and pull it up.
This one has a stripe,
this one is the color of blood.
And then we carry it back to Dad on shore,
drop the prize into a heap.
Our new baby sleeps next to our pile of stones—
a rock cairn
for some traveler. A gold finch,
bright as a butterfly bounces
on the other shore.
What’s between us?
I want her to live forever.
One week before, the baby was born.
I was startled by the heft of her body
against my chest. Her beautiful
smooshed face
and her cry. For a moment, that instant
before her breath, fear punched my heart,
I held my own, but then it came—
that cry I listen for down every moving hallway,
like a river. And there we were together, holding on.
Saying, Look,
look what I’ve found.
I want to stand forever at the edge
of this river, feet in the cold,
holding the hand of my daughter
where every so often, one of us reaches
into the water and pulls out a stone.
Look. Look at this one, we say.
From under the surface,
we find something smooth
and shining and pull it up.
This one has a stripe,
this one is the color of blood.
And then we carry it back to Dad on shore,
drop the prize into a heap.
Our new baby sleeps next to our pile of stones—
a rock cairn
for some traveler. A gold finch,
bright as a butterfly bounces
on the other shore.
What’s between us?
I want her to live forever.
One week before, the baby was born.
I was startled by the heft of her body
against my chest. Her beautiful
smooshed face
and her cry. For a moment, that instant
before her breath, fear punched my heart,
I held my own, but then it came—
that cry I listen for down every moving hallway,
like a river. And there we were together, holding on.
Saying, Look,
look what I’ve found.
Laura Stott is the author of three collections of poetry, The Bear's Mouth (forthcoming from Lynx House Press), Blue Nude Migration (Lynx House Press, 2020) and In the Museum of Coming and Going (New Issues Poetry and Prose, 2014). Her poems can be found in various publications, including Swwim, Mid-American Review, The Rupture, Barrow Street, Sugar House Review, Western Humanities Review, and Copper Nickel. She holds an M.F.A. from Eastern Washington University and teaches at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah.