Transplant

I.

I packed lightly: three boxes of books, 
a winter coat I'd rarely needed, 
two more boxes of books. 

Just what fit in a rust-specked Durango, 
full of old wasps’ nests with a bad 
suspension and two working doors.

But my body smuggled contraband: 
sweet cane smoke still lodged in lung tissue, 
muscle memory of 30 miles of River Road, 

my winding commute to Huey’s monolith, 
two dozen slime green tree frogs clinging 
to the hood for dear life the whole way.

II.

I keep my doctor’s letterhead, folded in thirds,
tucked inside a manila envelope worn soft 
from nervous handling. It’s one of many passports

required for crossing invisible borders. 
The pharmacist squints up, asks why I need 
syringes. I've rehearsed this in every airport 

bathroom, at every state line crossing, body 
being contested territory requiring 
constant documentation. 

The performance of legitimacy, the practiced 
and careful modulation of tone—not angry, 
not desperate—the practiced smile that says:

I am harmless,
I am deserving, 
I am prepared for your scrutiny.

III.

I brought a distant ancestor's thick
aluminum pot, now scraping against new
burners, patina darkening with each use. 

Northern friends marvel at what emerges, 
as if recipes can't survive transplanting, 
as if flavor requires a specific latitude, 

as if gumbo didn’t come here a century ago 
on recipes packed neatly in boxes, tucked carefully
in the suitcases of 500,000 seeking liberation,

as if my hands wouldn’t remember the moment flour
browns without needing to consult a map.
But the okra I find is woody and long, picked

weeks late by hands that have 
never put it raw to their mouths. 
I substitute, adapt, use the frozen stuff. 

IV.

In winter, my body betrays me, refuses
to acclimate. I shiver at 50 degrees. 
Neighbors laugh and say wait for January.

But it's not just the cold; it's my skin’s
thirst and how each breath feels incomplete, 
missing its water content.

I slice into a green bell pepper and smell 
my uncle’s kitchen and geography collapses 
and for two breaths, I am on warm white oak, 

watching surgeon’s hands, large, certain. 
Lake Michigan rattles the window, 
and I'm back, disoriented by time travel.

My accent thins. Phone calls home bring it 
rushing back, vowels stretching like Roman candy. 
I speak two languages: then and now.

V.

I miss the live oak in my yard, branches 
sprawling twice as wide as the house was tall. 
I miss the bench swing I hung myself, testing 

each year whether it would hold a body growing 
against its will. I don’t miss Lafayette Cemetery 
No. 1, where tourists crowd, laughing loudly, 

making goodbyes impossible to speak.
On my last visit, I stood in the stone
forest breathing in history's long decay.

I still hold now-useless knowledge of which 
streets flood first. I know the timing of stay-or-go. 
I can find higher ground nearby to park the car. 

My survival knowledge is rendered obsolete by latitude. 
But my body can’t know this. It still braces 
for the storm surge during any heavy rain.

VI.

Now there’s Lake Michigan, nothing like the Gulf's 
warm bath. In summer, it stretches beyond comprehension. 
In winter, ice shelves line the shore, bright blue 

and sharp-edged architectures larger than cathedrals. 
I learn water in new forms: solid, sculptural, patient.
I still don’t have the foreign vocabulary of snow. 

But I’m learning the sounds and sensation of salt crunching
underfoot and the way light behaves differently, refracting
in crystal air, illuminating towers that scrape the clouds. 

I find queer bars where no one knows me. Revel
in the freedom of selective disclosure. Rub up
against bodies like mine, gender blurred by down and wool. 

The streets here are laid out in grid precision, 
unlike New Orleans' drunk compass. 
There are tornado sirens instead of flood warnings. 

I’ve come to love the patient wait for spring, 
the way winter burns the eyes 
and summer swells with possibility. 

New muscle memory forms: the defensive hunch
against a shocking wind. My husband, Chicago-born,
who never knew evacuations or the dread of watching

water rise past doorsteps. His body holds its own
knowledge: how to shovel snow without straining your back, 
which trains run late in February storms, the timing

of salt trucks before dawn. He teaches me winter
survival: layers, not bulk; wool, not cotton. His hands
are steady on my shoulders as I learn to walk on ice. At night,

he listens to my stories until they become part of him too,
his dreams filling with water he's never seen. Migration
happens in both directions; we become each other's geography.