“For what we do presage is not in grosse, For we are brethren of the Rosie Crosse; We have the Mason Word and second sight, Things for to come we can foretell aright.”
 — Henry Adamson, The Muses’ Threnodie (Perth, 1638)

I hid the expensive cheese
behind celery, radishes, nappa,
so you couldn’t eat it all.
I’d walked full-bellied like
an overripe melon, dragged
into my 38th week, too long
you said, to carry your son’s child
Something’s wrong you said, often.  

As if I hadn’t known since
the dream before we moved to the city,
the one in the old farmhouse
where we’d planned a home birth, a glow
like a firefly jumped from the sugar bowl
flew up the stairs to my womb, nestled
near the baby. We had to move, I said.  

As if I hadn’t known when I invited
our former country landlord
and wife to Thanksgiving dinner
so unnerved I set out sunshine tea,
cloth napkins, bread plates, relish tray,
but forgot to start the turkey in the oven.  

Next morning at breakfast, I pulled
the semi-frozen sausage roll
from the freezer following the recipe
in Bon Appétit (for easy cutting)
while you practiced your morning yoga
in the harem pants you made and sold
building up your hunger. 

I sliced a clean, half-moon line in my ring
finger, smooth, almost surgical. I look at the scar
now, remembering I couldn’t scream at you to leave, 
take with you your Rosicrucian ways, the Edgar Cayce
life readings, the Tarot Cards, and the Benson & Hedges.  

Pressing hard on the two halves of my flesh
to slow the red flow, I understood why I smuggled
smoked goat cheese into my home, buried
away from you, why I savored razor thin feuilles
of the gjetost, each one thick with desire—my tongue
was hungry to speak the truth: It was I
first knew this child would be special.