A5
Collective Memory
Excerpt from novel: A longitudinal case study into motherlessness.

i was conceived accidentally

on clam beach at the start of the new era
with my father wearing moccasins
kneeling in the sand and
my mother under a rainfly.
i read about it in a news article.

fifteen months later i was born
with hair like Samson,
is what they said.
severely underweight for a six-month-old,
severely overweight for any newborn.

you might have heard about me,
in some medical marvel journal or tabloid:
“Boy Stays Year-And-A-Half In Womb, Survives”
front page with a cover photo of me
all confused and covered in goop,
and in the background,
out of focus, obese, and unmistakably dead,
is my mother.

at the end of her third trimester
my mother entered the emergency room
with labor pains and contractions six minutes apart.
she did the breathing exercises as practiced,
no problem there.
the problem was with me.
i have issues letting go.

Samson Manoah