A40
Collective Memory
Excerpt from novel: A longitudinal case study into motherlessness.

for what is a better example of love

than to grow a person inside of you?
to create hopes for it while
feeding it from your own plate
chew for it all of its food,
share with it your entirety,
lull it to sleep and
tolerate its stretching beneath your skin,
knowing all the while that she will have to
force it out of her body
in what is widely accepted to be
the most painful common experience
of all humankind.
there is no greater love than this.

Samson Manoah