Matrilineacide: A Poem

“Words wreak havoc when they find a name

for what had, up to then,

been lived namelessly.” –Sartre

    My great grandmothers are lost to me; lost too are all the mothers who came before. Their last names have been taken, removed from the memory of centuries. Whole families disappear that way - truth and story and knowledge, too. This loss deserves a name, that I might speak my sorrow. And the grace of graces, one they were never shown: the choice to adopt it  (to keep or discard it) is yours and yours alone.

-Jessica Marsico