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Iced Coffee

Dinh Xuan Phan

Would we know each other anywhere else

but here at this crowded round table in a 

small square kitchen every Sunday afternoon

where pepper leaf, fish mint, and purple perilla

accent every plate of sizzling crepes, where 

spicy curry meets sweet baguette, and 

Swiss Maggi and American sriracha, 

comprise our condiment centerpiece?   

It is always the same:

the too-fancy silverware and paper napkins, 

the home clothes and long black hair 

absorbing the pungent scent of 

fish sauce swelling the air. 

In the living room, the adults are drinking 

cà phê sua đá, laughing every syllable of a 

language whose sumptuous depths are foreign 

to me and to Kim with a wicked smile 

leaning forward to hear electrifying gossip, 

virtuous Lina ignoring them, and Lily disdaining 

the durian being served, hoards the dragon fruit.   

I wonder—all of us, reclining here, plotting

our next trip to the outlets in Grapevine,

dreaming of our glossy magazine futures—

where else but here could our lives

intersect and be understood?

DINH XUAN PHAN, 2009, is an English major and in the Program in Education.