| You Guan Xi yuo gwan she - it has a relation This is how it’s said in Chinese. One of these days I’m going to dig a ditch in my chest go past the depth of a grave and keep going until I reach the mainland with one language in the cells of my spine a DNA double helix has one spiral written in Chinese, the other in English. I’m going to put my shovel to the strands, going to uproot my father’s language, but my ribs won’t change. My bones will still have some Statue-of-Liberty marrow although I will never be any whiter. My tongue still moves, sometimes in its old ways, saying, “I want, I want” all the time . . . but I am digging, digging, digging. I could do this to many generations. Shall I shovel in the cemetery and remarry my grandparents? -- Jennifer Crystal Fang-Chien "You Guan Xi" first appeared in Eclipse in 2002. |