I hold the tiny thing in my hand, cocoon it in my closed fist. I don’t wait until I’m home to pull off the tab and turn it on. A little egg appears on the screen, shakes, cracks in half and becomes itself. For the first hour he shits every five minutes and beeps loudly if Idon’t play with him. I play with him and feed him bread, not cake, so he’ll grow healthy. That night I can’t sleep, scared that he might need me. Already I neglect myself. It’s fine. I could learn to love a spoon if I gave it a name I could say. I name him Egg, as a placeholder until he evolves. First he is a circle, no more than eight pixels, then slightly larger he grows legs, and finally evolves into a rabbit, the kind you only get by giving perfect care. I can’t imagine calling him anything but Egg. By now I’ve had him for a week. I keep Egg in my breast pocket and imagine my heartbeat synching to his battery’s beep. I call him my son, only half joking. That night I go to a bar and don’t realize until I’m in bed that I don’t know where he is. I call the bar, and the restaurant I had dinner at, and check my bag and every piece of clothing I’ve worn in the past week. I hope that in the morning he will beep to let me know he’s awake and I will find him. The morning comes silently. I ask my friends if this means I will be a bad mother in hope that they’ll praise me for caring at all.

María Llona García is a Peruvian poet and translator. She holds an MFA in poetry from The New School. Born in Lima, she currently lives in Brooklyn, where she writes about family, memory, and the plants she can’t seem to keep alive.