By Lucía Orellana Damacela

a remote control morning. baking shows. digitized feelings. cyber social distance. video-called closeness. the screen the new skin. some earrings and a navy sweater over pjs an ensemble. the quinoa cake pic well received in our transnational small chat group. discussing butter substitutes. how to hold things together. to make them coalesce. chia gel, ripe banana puree or applesauce. need to choose wisely, depending on what else goes there. mix and match day. then these news. my young cousins’ father suddenly died of pneumonia in my hometown. perhaps it was covid-19 related. they don’t know yet. the children gather their mourning around pictures of a bearded and rim-glassed father holding them, laying down with them on the grass. now the family holds them together. their chia gel. here at home, we bake in the evening. we make things rise.

Lucía Orellana Damacela is the author of Sea of Rocks (Unsolicited Press, 2018), inHERent (Fly on the Wall Press, forthcoming), Longevity River (Plan B Press, 2019), and Life Lines, which won The Bitchin’ Kitsch Chapbook Competition (2018).  Her work has been published in both English and Spanish in more than twelve countries, in periodicals and anthologies such as Tin House Online, Carve, Sharkpack Annual, Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, and The Acentos Review.  She tweets as @lucyda.