by Rocio Franco
Poetry
my
full
breath
caught
in
my
esophagus
attempts
to
squeeze
past
needle
passage
narrowed
by
the
choking
of
inflamed
glands
the oncologist mimes
about toxins mutating cells
in turn muting the recoiled
air confined in my chest
his muffled motions
show me
how a villain
dwells inside a body
Rocio Franco is a Latinx poet and activist from Chicago, Illinois. She is a 2020 Frost Conference on Poetry alum, her poems have appeared in The Acentos Review, and her poems recently appeared in the inaugural Fire Season issue for Outpatient Press. She works as a health insurance counselor at a nonprofit union health fund and strongly believes in universal healthcare. She loves exploring the city with her husband and daughter on the weekends, practices Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, and approaches the world with a social justice lens.