Tulips.

For a year and a half
I kept the bulbs in my trunk
and the shards of broken pottery.
I heard them rolling whenever I turned
and when she asked,
I told her I had planted them,
because she was worried they might have rotted.

They did not.

After eighteen months, I cleaned my car
and they were buried under a towel
green stubs poking shyly
through their papery flesh.

I wish, now,
that I hadn’t thrown them out.