Nine days after her birth,

we bury the placenta

Johnnie digs a hole

aside the statue of La Virgen de Guadalupe

Morenita

“Ave Maria”

I thank this temporary organ

for nourishing her

287 days inside my body

As we offer up

copal and poetry and prayer, 

loosen the plastic lid

mix blood with soil

and we return it

to the Earth.

about the author

Briana Muñoz is a poet from Southern California. She is the author of two books of poetry including Loose Lips (Prickly Pear Publishing) and Everything is Returned to the Soil (FlowerSong Press). Her work has been published in the anthology How to Reimagine America, Cultural Daily, the Beat Not Beat Anthology, the Oakland Arts Review, Dryland Literary Journal, the Angel City Review, the Somos Xicanas anthology, and several other publications. 

Briana is the founder of Poetry as Harm Reduction and currently serving as the board of directors secretary for the Los Angeles Poet Society. She has performed poetry in places like the International Poetry Festival of Havana, Cuba, the 2015 Festival de Poesia in Tijuana, Baja California, MX, as well as at the XXI Congreso Internacional de Literatura y Estudios Hispanicos in Quito, Ecuador.