My mother apologizes for getting goop in my hair
It’s Mother’s Day and we are making candles
Silicone molds laid out before us
And my aunt’s long lost metal bowl
Double boiling on the stove.
The goop is a gel meant to keep her skin
From over-drying. If it does,
It peels too soon, pulls too deep
And brings the blood
Through the surface and into the air.
She didn’t expect to be candling today
Nor did I, our plan to watch some movie
On Netflix in the dark,
Her skin slowly sloughing off the burn.
It’s Mother’s Day, but two days ago
She went to melt her face off,
To keep the cancer from becoming something bad.
The doctors told her to lay down at least a week
But here she is, bright red and bustling
Between plastic packs of petals
And placemats lined with lotus seeds.
She tells me not to shake
As I hold the mold between my palms
And let her pour the body in,
Still just wax but becoming skin
And bones, a torso twisting tightly,
Hiding all its flowers,
Just waiting to be burned.
Haley Bossé (they/them) is a founding editor of the Monarch Queer Literary Awards, editor of Eye to the Telescope: (Non)Binaries, and facilitator of the Mycelial Writers Workshop. Their first chapbook Aurora Comes Online explores genderqueer self-discovery in the age of chatbot girlfriends.