Soaping up hairy legs is like bathing horses. With my fingers on the foamy plush of my calf, I remember my grandfather Alberto’s horses."

A Coronavirus novel, in theory, brings a quotidian narrative to epidemic literature. This is not a story of a select few but rather of everyone; not only lives but livelihoods.

They were at that point in their marriage when she no longer asked him to zip her up—certainly not the zipper to the dress she’d chosen in defiance of his suggestions. She hadn’t asked his opinion about the hat she’d decided to purchase either.

The other day, the tyrant said, hate has
no place in our country, while naming the
wrong city where the tragedy occurred,
and I thought: Is man no more than this.

The reasons why my own family chose to immigrate illegally are so complex and personal. How could someone who has not shared this fear or uncertainty know our estrangement, let alone write about it?

Should I pretend
the desire was new? The list of girls I still
want to be is mental.