The wormy apple tree
we chainsawed to a stump
is not content to be
a barren amputee.
It has produced a clump
of rank and spindly shoots,
a thicket still unthinned,
each one a witch's wand,
suggesting that the roots
regard our surgery
as one more hostile thing
to overcome in spring,
like parried blades of wind -
mischief to live beyond.