Transplanting

Illustration to Tennyson's "Sleeping Beauty" by W. E. F. Britten, 1901

I wasn’t patient enough to dig beneath
each long aorta of taproot, work them
free. (All five roses: mystery grafts on
knobbled, half-rotten rootstock, thorns
set sharp as fairytale briars to bleed the
unwary; primary roots fathoms deep in
mantle, lateral roots like capillary beds
filled with worms.) Yes, I apologized for
severing what I couldn’t uproot, and the
roses were kind, didn’t prick me even as
I cut them, pried them out, lifted them
into the air, moved them to more light.