By Rocío Franco
Bloody Half-Birth
after the painting, My Birth by Frida Kahlo
If thousands of Monarcas
heavy with migration
can rest on their bark all winter,
it can hold
the profound labor of childbirth.
A mother straddles death and
life on a bed made of fir trees.
She is covered from her face
to her torso with a white sheet.
A woman looks on,
her mouth painted in horror.
How can God interrupt birth?
Un arrepentimiento de despedida y nacimiento.
In a crowded restaurant,
we are cemented in a booth. I look at her
across the table, and I am unspared
from her tears demanding forgiveness.
She corrals me
like a wounded calf, and I choke
on a mouthful of milk.
I feel unsafe pushing back in front of stale chips,
speckled salsa, and warm tap water
Me ahogo en un vaso at her half-hearted attempt
to stuff her mistakes back
into the womb. Her face distorts, and her features conjoin
into a departing jeer.
I escape pregnant with regret for not unveiling her.
To be exposed is to be born.
An Afternoon Reparenting On An Empty Playground My boots swing above branches bent to winter. Fresh snow lies ahead, diamonds in the sun. After each rotation, chains unravel while the trees hang in splendor. This freedom used to elude me, but now, a smile untangles itself as a lassoed breath releases from my lungs. My bones have aged from responsibility, and my eyes have creased from flinching. But this joy sways me in a different direction. The child is safe-- who once ran from bruising hands.
Rocío Franco is a Chicana warrior poet from Chicago. She holds fellowships from The Watering Hole, Roots Wounds Words, Periplus Collective, and others. Her work has been supported by the Frost Place Conference on Poetry, Jericho Brown’s advanced workshop at The Lighthouse, Voices of Our Nations (VONA), and Tin House’s Summer Workshop. She is a Best of the Net nominee and a Pushcart Prize nominee, and her poetry has been taught to high schoolers in New York. Her poems have appeared in The Acentos Review, the Exposition Review, Lunch Ticket, and others. Her poems are forthcoming in december magazine and AGNI. She works full-time as a health insurance counselor at a non-profit union health fund and strongly believes in universal healthcare. She loves exploring the city with her family on the weekends, practicing Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, and approaching the world with a social justice lens. You can connect with her on Instagram @chio_la_chingona and Twitter @RocioGotLines.