This is in the December issue of Pennsylvania’s Poetic Voices. Close as I get to truth.

Tulips

If I declared myself
an optimist,
my friends would laugh
their way to
cracked ribs.

And yet,
I spent all afternoon
planting tulip bulbs
in the barely
yielding soil.

What can be
more optimistic
than planting bulbs
on the threshold
of winter.

Imagining the first
fine day in March
will carry me
through February—
take the edge off the wind

til the sun warms
my face,
and I patrol
the flower beds
looking for that first green.