Louise doesn’t mean to anglicize my name but

By Josephine Wu / First published in Diode Poetry Journal 

she does it anyway because her tongue doesn’t 

bend the right way. I won’t think about it except for 

tonight when I google translate all the characters: 

initially altogether, then bit by bit until the machine 

swallows each radical part & spits out a dream. 

A dream where I osmanthicize into wine, too bitter 

to be white. The machine says jade bud, a thick, 

dead flower only borne from wine cups & teapots. I 

tell Louise so she can exorcise out a meaning. Wind 

up voice to regurgitate syllables into cavities. Ask 

why a Chinese last name comes first. I don’t know, 

I answer, because I don’t. Something about family & 

the way it steeps when skinnied into silence. Two 

decades ago, sailing from a tea boat, a smoke- 

sobered couple flowered their osmanthus wine into 

daughter. They called her 吴璐蓓 for the emerald 

slant of the ocean. A name spoken only by a steel- 

voiced machine & Louise, when nostalgic & bitter.

---

Josephine Wu is a writer and law student based in New York City. Her work has appeared in the Adroit Journal, Hobart, and Sine Theta Magazine, and she has been nominated for two Best of the Net awards as well as Best New Poets. A 2024 Adroit Finalist for Prose, she also served as Editor-in-Chief of The Anthem, Georgetown’s oldest literary arts magazine. You can find more of her work at josephinewu.carrd.co.