Regrowth

Originally published in Ever Eden Literary Journal Summer 2019.

“They say that heavy pruning can kill a plant,
take too much at the wrong time,” he prodded
the ancient rosebush with his toe.  The stem
was thick and gnarled from regrowth, dead wood
and green beside each other in a tangled
mass, but now there were no leaves.  He shook
his head, “you should have waited till the flowers
finished blooming.”
The boy blushed a rose
across his freckled cheeks.  “I didn’t mean
to hurt it, saw you do the same.”
He shrugged.
“We can replant if worst things come to worst.”
When the man left, the boy cried all the same
like sap that oozes from a broken shoot.
Heavy pruning sometimes kills a plant,
but green and dead a man always regrows.