On Coming Out to My Mother

Max Hunt

—then she wept. wilting into herself, 
sobs blooming into hiccups, 
clutching a spider lily of creases into my bedsheet; 
like i had died in front of her— 
            like my body forgot how to be a body 
            and liquesced into a puddle of heat-spoiled honey. 

how could the dead comfort the grieving? 
she heard nothing. 
my hands haunted her shoulders.