A6
Collective Memory
Excerpt from novel: A longitudinal case study into motherlessness.

my mother died when i was born.

everything i know of her
has been told to me
with the intent to show her in a certain light,
and i therefore have no understanding
of who she actually was.
half of her is me, however,
and i am attempting to learn which half isn’t
through the process of elimination.

i know that she loved me very much
but i have no recollection
of what that felt like.
i see it in my friends and their moms.
they know something i’ll never know;
i absorb it when i’m in its presence.
others’ mothers lend such sweet sympathies
to motherless children,
for only they can know
what exactly we lack.
but i am only their temporary child
and they, a surrogate.
they neither nursed or held me,
they never carried me wombside
or fed me from their throat.
their lungs never startled me,
their hearts never taught me rhythm,

but they give me crumbs from their feast
and i peck them up thankfully.

Samson Manoah