The plant guides say sterilize your garden
shears or blade before cutting beneath a visible
node, before plunging newly shorn stems into
a tall vessel of clean water. Change the water
every few days, or when it turns murky; in a month
or two, observe a ghostly emergence of roots.
Let them grow longer, until their tassels look strong
enough to settle into a new pot of soil. In this case,
the severing is not its choice to make—unlike when
a child decides she wants to have no more to do with
you, or with the human unit into which she was born.
It has been more than a few months. Who is uprooter,
who is uprooted? Each night, let the kindness
of water cloud over our wounded feet.