Bloody Half-Birth & An Afternoon Reparenting On An Empty Playground

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.