NICOLE HART
How to Prevent a Stillbirth
Click your heels three times before you get pregnant. Lather your hair each night with sage and rosemary shampoo. Drink raspberry leaf tea with each meal, and chamomile for sleep. Pray every morning before day breaks, before any light shines through the ivory gauze curtains. Pray specifically for the sun to rise and ask politely: dear sun, please rise. Just like that.
Once you are pregnant, rub your belly clockwise six times every hour on the hour. Sing her your private lullaby, the one where no boughs break, no cradles fall. Study the screen as the doctor spreads warm gel over your abdomen and waves his magic wand. Study the black and white rainbow hanging above the curve of her perfect head. Listen as your song fills the green room with gold. When the doctor’s brow furrows and he says I’ll be right back, keep singing.
This is very important: do not stop singing. If you stop singing, she will stop listening. And if she stops listening, her heart will stop beating. And if her heart stops beating, you will search for the break in your song, the place where a single note collides with her pulse.
You will search even after the doctor repeats nothing could be done. You will search even after her little sisters are born, and their daughters too. You will ask the sun to rise, you will sing the song, you will drink the tea. You will draw the curtains. So long as you are singing, the story cannot end.
Nicole Hart is a lawyer living in Westchester, New York with her husband and two children. Her flash and poetry has been published, or is forthcoming, in JMWW, BULL and Whale Road Review. You can find her on Twitter @nicolehart_blog.