It
all
began
by ruling
out options. Not this,
we don't want her always snogging.
Not this either: it sounds like the Aedes mosquito.
Later on, my brother ventured
a chic English name:
What about
Michelle?
"Like
God"?
I
like it.
Mainly as
it's hard to mangle,
rolling like wine off foreign tongues.
Friends playfully christened me Boon – your Hokkien name!
It didn't occur to them a
boon is a blessing,
that they'd just
given
me
a
gift.
Funny,
how these sounds,
words they call me by,
hum keenly, vibrate intensely,
and permeate my body, my bones, my breath like love.
