My Children’s Names

I named my daughter Emma after Jane Austen’s literary heroine and chatty sensation Miss Woodhouse.

I named my son Brendan after Frederick Buechner’s story of that shipwrecked sinner and saint.

I named my son Theo after Vincent van Gogh’s dear brother and patron of art and faith.

by An Xu 3-27-20

“Have You Lost Your Voice?”

My uncle asks me the question

out of great concern for my well-being.

I respond quietly, “Yes, I have lost my voice.”

I do not know when such strength might return to me or if it will ever return.

I want to retreat back into the past three decades of unwritten silence

but we are having a nice lunch together 

and there is his formative Confucian plus Taoist education

as well as the classic myths and romantic tales to discuss and consider at length.

However, there remains the underlying question

of what the hell happened to my fourteen centuries of marriage?

Let me just say that it is something mutually misunderstood by the y-husband and the x-wife.

by An Xu 3-25-20