Tulip Garden

I shoved them in the ground shallow
and uneven in my backyard
on a misty day at the start
of December. My pouches of peeling
bulbs from the grocery store were already
beginning to rot, but imagining a small
catalog of popping colors, peach and purple,
pink and white,
I planted them anyway.
I wondered if I’d dug deep enough,
if the bulbs were too old. For weeks
I predicted spring melting the snow
to reveal
a barren strip of dirt,
the curling shoot of a             singular
yellow-wilted leaf like a tired flag
announcing all the death
below. But March broke
the crust of ice and there they were,
hard knots of green       bursting
their small heads
through the cold dirt, hovering       just
above the ground.
Except for one—gnawed off, it was nearly gone.
I thought I saw the rabbit run.
Afterward, worried, I fantasized
of vermin, of a grown garden full
of headless stems,       fragile and waving
stiff in the wind,      leaves all chewed
like the ears of an unloved dog.
But then came April, and      May after,
I got tired of wringing my hands,
and the tulips grew    and were still    growing.
Some were planted too close, others too        far, but still
each morning          they were yawning open
towards the sun.
Even the bitten one bloomed    two petals.