Yvonne Nguyen
Image by Catherine Luzganova
Yvonne Nguyen is a recent graduate of the University of Virginia and currently teaches English Language Arts in Richmond, Virginia. Recently, her poem "I Would've Called Her Honey" was shortlisted for the Brain Mill Press Poetry Month Award. Other works of hers can be read in The Roadrunner Review, Call Me [Brackets], Down in the Dirt, Bewildering Stories, Ginosko Literary Magazine, Yes Poetry, and Plainsongs. Her work has also been nominated for the Best of the Net Award and the 2020 Pushcart Prize.
I Would’ve Called Her Honey
She was blonde-adjacent.
Quasi-brunette. That sun-ripened
syrup hue that made my mouth salty. Not curly, just playful
like the top of a soft-serve ice cream cone.
For that wheat-field, molasses river, I sacrificed the last hair band
around my wrist. The one I hadn’t lost
in three weeks, because
she probably needed it. To concentrate
on her Trig test.
Or to play goalie in hand-ball.
Or to tie off her unfinished bag of pretzels.
I didn’t even mind when I saw her hold it between her teeth.
I just held my breath, watching
to see if the thinning elastic would hold against
her four-twist ponytail.
Even now,
even all these years since the last time
I put my hair in a high-ponytail or tried to find one girl’s exact
shade in the hair dye aisle of a CVS-- just to know its name.
I still wear that indented mark
on my wrist, that puckered phantom bracelet
and regret the baby hairs falling out
onto the nape of her neck.
The ones I couldn’t help catch.
©2021 West Trade Review
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