five poems
by Hayley Shucker
Serendipity
I don’t know if I believe in fate anymore, but I do believe in serendipity. Maybe it is because I’m a John Cusack fan, and part of me is still waiting for my five-dollar bill to reappear. But who uses cash anymore? I rarely do unless a bar is cash-only. I never opened a New York bank account, so all ATMs chide me with fees. But when the universe speaks, I try to listen with both ears, with heart, gargling the words to soothe my sore throat. I think about the elevator scene, too. The leap of faith, expecting to jump to the same floor as someone else, as you both go about your crazy journey. That movie came out in 2001. Imagine pining for something for twenty-four years as it gathers dust with the other dreams and trinkets on its forgotten shelf. I hate when dust becomes sticky, when it can’t be brushed off, when it is shelacked on.
Bonnets
Dan carries me home from the beach on his shoulders, the ruffles of my dress on his head like the bonnet I wore at Easter, basting the turkey with his mother, my surrogate grandmother, in the kitchen with no counter space, the kitchen where she ate her orange marmalade toast, saving strawberry for me, where my mother was always washing dishes, the only way she knew to make herself useful.
When You Grow Up on Section 8 Housing
siblings share everything like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle underwear that belonged to my half-brother that I wore as a hand-me-down and when I asked Mom what the hole was for received only a laugh as an answer, the same laugh she gave me when I asked to be put up for adoption.
Pastry
I’d love to be at the center of your table
in golden, crisp glory
your apple pie crust
your almond croissant at breakfast
But you’re impetuous
watch
as you
twist me
plait me
poke me
pinch me
knead me
Need me.
don’t ruin me
don’t push too hard
I’ll shrink back
or burst
butter weeping through my seams
like blood from my veins
ugly brown
blistered and burned on the tin.
On That Forced Afternoon Walk
I took
A sunset orange leaf,
the color of an August afternoon at the beach,
of platonic simplicity
before love
ruined me.
I left
the rotting orange peel,
its warty skin a blue-gray
and deer shit,
to nurture the grass.
You do not understand
how
decomposition or death makes a poem.
I gave away
or lost
soul mates and sanity.
Rolled out of my pocket,
rolled off my tongue,
rolled out of my bed
and back to your life.
Photo of Hayley Shucker
BIO: Hayley Shucker holds an MFA in Fiction and an MA in English. Her creative work has appeared or is forthcoming in Silly Goose Press, Etched Onyx, The Mersey Review, Door is a Jar, Los Angeles Review, Reed Magazine, and more. She is a screener for BAFF and a reader at Craft Literary Journal. She loves musical theater, cats, and baking. Read her work on hayleyshucker.com, subscribe to hayleyshucker.substack.com for analysis of first chapters, and find her on Instagram @superhayleykaystuff.