Joyful Suspicion

This evening, washing dishes, and a memory materializes, 
that of a moment when I knew something
unconsciously, but knew it still. 

My love had brought me to the little snowy town of Aspen,
and we were going to lunch at a cafe in a bookstore,
or was it after lunch…?
Either way we were on the sidewalk, 
and crossed a pair of mothers with their children. 

My cold, ungloved hand
- the one not holding the hand of my beloved - 
hung empty and casual at my side. 
One of the children, 
a boy of three or so, 
had become detached from his mother for a few seconds as she spoke to her friend.
He took my hand, in his sweet confusion, and took a couple strides with us in our direction. 

The two women giggled and called to him, 
I squeezed his little fingers and reoriented him, laughing and shrugging
and secretly ecstatic inside myself, 

because I felt that I was to become a mother soon myself. 
I didn’t know it then, but I was a couple weeks pregnant.  
I didn’t know. But I knew. 

Intuitive suspicions live inside wily cells. 
They know better than I. They smile quietly while 
my solid being slides itself through experiences such as that one.

Experiences such as now, 
standing at the sink and listening to the refrigerator hum amidst the otherwise silent woods. 
What am I unconsciously yet joyfully suspicious of now? 
What intuition lurks behind my tired yet happy form? 
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