Nhi
meaning ‘little one’
my parents called me nho, sometimes
a singular grape
a child so small
plucked from a vine
I was given an English name
so that I wouldn’t get bullied
for such an exotic background
I was reborn for the convenience
of others
Michelle
meaning ‘child of God’
my mother had two boys she loved
but prayed everyday to have a girl
the third time,
to have her likeness reflected
in such a tiny face
and in December of ’94
she did
I rejected Nhi most of my life
a relic of forgetting myself
of welcoming the parts that were easy
and holding my applause for the parts
I wanted to keep quiet
A single syllable
uttered like a sigh in the night–
why would I try to erase
the love that preceded my birth
and the affection that named me?
davidbruceblog #2 