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.