A42
Collective Memory
Excerpt from novel: A longitudinal case study into motherlessness.


i spent the formative months of my life

in this warm, calm place.
everything just heartbeats and breathings.
a gurgling stomach
a spinning womb.
i knew two persons through all of it only;
my self and hers
and then i was ejected
and then she was dead.
everything before that moment
was no longer relevant to life or anything like it.
it was the warmth of something
i would never be allowed again.


Samson Manoah