Transplant by Lauren Scharhag

With your new abundance
of time, you watch cooking videos.
You start with bread.
Before I know it, you 
are turning out beautiful loaves.
In three years, we find
there’s nothing you can’t do, no dish
you can’t master: baguettes,
pillowy croissants, arepas,
chocolate babka, Three Kings bread,
homemade pizzas and pasta, sushi, 
dumplings, and biscuits the way
your grandma made them,
roasted pork belly and braised short ribs.
For Valentine’s Day, you surprise me
with a filet and lobster tail.
For every holiday, we happily gift you
kitchen gadgets, welcoming you back
to a world of appetite. Every artist knows
that sometimes, you have to die
in order to create, and you have died
several times over. But now, my love, 
you live, and not just on bread alone. 

You live.

Lauren Scharhag is the author of fourteen books, including Requiem for a Robot Dog (Cajun Mutt Press) and Languages, First and Last (Cyberwit Press). Her work has appeared in over 150 literary venues around the world. Recent honors include the Seamus Burns Creative Writing Prize, three Best of the Net nominations, and acceptance into the 2021 Antarctic Poetry Exhibition. She lives in Kansas City, MO. To learn more about her work, visit: www.laurenscharhag.blogspot.com