I carve your name into an apple’s skin,
intent on taking you in. The fruit, a
we burn down the aviary to
And yet, I feel my own skeleton
lions dance.
A phoenix? Simply the least flammable bird.

Steven Duong is a Vietnamese American poet from San Diego, California and a student of English at Grinnell College. His poems are featured or forthcoming in Salt Hill, Academy of American Poets, Columbia Poetry Review, Crab Creek Review, Sugar House Review, Pacifica Literary Review, The Penn Review, Rust+Moth, and other venues. He lives in rural Iowa with some good friends